Applying to LGO/MBA and a simple checklist

     Sven Eriksson once said, "The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure," and I believe this is one of the single most deterrents for many would-be LGO/MBAs. The fear to apply, put yourself on paper, and then be at the mercy of the admission committee, can overwhelm and undermine the ability for many to reach their goals. I have been there; in some sense we all have. But don’t take my word for it. Here are some quotes from current LGO students answering what were their biggest hurdles:

·      “psychologically getting over the fear of going back to school and debt”

·      “workload for the entire program; would I have time for my family”

·      “getting over the fear that I might not get in to MIT after I got dinged first round at another university. Also, deciding to pursue the MBA in the first place put me in a defensive position with my technical peers who did not understand the value proposition. They labeled me a sellout. I was going for pure MBA until I came across LGO and considered it a godsend.”

·      “Either overcoming procrastination or convincing myself that getting an MBA would actually be worth the time and money (looking past NPV)”

If you read nothing else from this blog today, decide for yourself to jump and don't look back, the rest of your life is waiting. 

     I have to preface this blog post with the following disclosure:

1. The current LGO students have absolutely no say in the admission process. The admission committees (adcom) completely own this process. 
2. To be an LGO student, you have to be "admitted" 3 times. Once by Sloan, once by LGO program office, and once by the engineering department. They are very thorough.
3. The contents of this blog do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the LGO Program nor the MIT Sloan MBA Program, its employees, officers, or students

For the rest of this post, I am assuming you are applying and want to know how to put your best foot forward. Here is a simple checklist that I used when applying:

My Checklist

1.     Did I write my essays and give an authentic representation of myself, genuine reflections on my experiences, shared failures and what I learned from them, and simply, “Does my story make sense?” (Don’t for the love of god use find and replace. That is a great way for you to waste 250 bucks and the time it took to put the application together; the adcoms know other school’s essays and can sniff this out like a bloodhound)

2.     Are “most” of my metrics in the middle 80% of the class statistics? http://lgo.mit.edu/apply/qualifications/

3.     Did I get letters of recommendation from “good” writers whom are going to spotlight my technical ability, leadership qualities, and are going to offer a genuine perspective on my accomplishments and failures?

4.     Do I adequately and authentically answer why I choose the [Systems, Electrical, Bio, etc] engineering department?

5.     Did I strategically use the additional “supplemental information” essay to say anything else to the adcom?

6.     Did I make sure that my application is free of simple grammatical mistakes and highlights and supplements my story? Did I read the essays out loud to a third party?

7.     Did I spotlight my professional goals, interests, and how MIT supports these interests?

8.     Did I adequately answer why LGO, why operations, and why MIT? (Hard)

9.     Lastly, did I send everything in and make sure my application is complete? Simple but this blocks quite a few people?

Finally a few pictures from "Movember" and LGO life

Half of my core team at the Fall Ball, with my beautiful wife Tiff

The "LGOs" of Movember minus a few

Spencer is so handsome (at Fall Ball)

Negotiation talk with the 14's at Walker Memorial 

My Ambassador Day Experience

     A couple of years prior, when I was still contemplating which schools I wanted to apply to, I decided to attend the LGO program's Ambassador Day. I didn't particularly know what to expect and found myself reading up on the program, some of the faculty, and which people were in the program office. I still remember wrestling over the shirt I was going to wear with my suit (which I still had from my undergrad interviews 5 years prior), and which tie: red shows passion and intensity, blue demonstrates depth and stability, etc. I choose red.
    The day arrived and I suited up and jumped on the T to show up 15 minutes early as you never know with this Boston subway system. I was surprised by the number of other people attending Ambassador Day and promptly began introducing myself. Everyone was very friendly and I still remember shaking the hand of this one guy who later offered to help me better my sentence correction ability on the GMAT. After everyone arrived I remember getting matched with this other LGO who was going to take us to a Sloan class. I was very nervous as I was the odd man out, and thought about what happens if the prof cold calls me. Surely they won't do that right? I was too embarrassed to ask and chalked it up to a delusion of self-importance and walked in to my first Sloan classroom.
     After coming from the University of Texas, where some classes can be up to 400 students, I realized that this was a rather cozy 40-ish students; pretty awesome if you ask me. On the flipside, I was thinking, "now the professor really could ask me something I don't know." But that didn't happen and I was worried for nothing. The class was taught by Professor Joseph Doyle, and the course was Economics for Business Decisions 15.010. I remember thinking that he led a particularly interesting lecture and only cold called a couple folks during the lecture. Most of the students seemed down to earth and even talked to me about what I was doing and why I should apply. First impression was pretty awesome.
     After my first Sloan class we went to an information session where current LGO students gave invaluable, and candid, information about the program and what they love about MIT. I felt like I could relate to every person on the panel and noticed how different they seemed to be from all the "across the river" business school students I met the week prior. I gained insight into what tracks people were doing and why, and started to understand what the program timeline meant for most typical LGOs.
     Following the information session, I had lunch with a current student and she was very instrumental in helping shape my opinion on the program. If you have the chance to talk to a current LGO student, take it, as you will get first hand knowledge on the program. I can't stress this point enough.
     After, the information session it gets a little fuzzy in my memory (3 years ago). However I remember   getting to meet the program director, multiple sloan affiliated program office people, and a ton of other LGOs. Everyone was very personable and intent on making sure that I was having a good day and that all my questions and concerns were being answered. I was rather impressed with MIT's ability to give me a single day LGO experience.

     In closing, if you are still on the fence about whether or not to come to Ambassador's day, know that this day was the single most important thing I could have done for myself in meeting the LGO program office, determining how I fit in with the school, and what LGO student life was all about. Your time and money will be well spent if you decide to visit. Plus lunch is included.

As I feel like a picture is warranted Here is one from our joint SDM/LGO halloween party. Yes we had fun.

Midterm Post-Mortem

     Thursday, as I was sitting in my final midterm of last week (midterm 3 of 3), a gentlemen gave a loud audible sigh of relief after he left the room, causing riotous laughter for the folks remaining in the classroom; this is MIT after all. As the time slowly slipped away, and I was furiously finishing my OP exam trying to remember the Political, Strategic, and Cultural Lenses, I remember thinking that everything was going to be fine; just remember to write your MIT ID on the test. Immediately after I finished my test, my professor offered me turkish delight and I noticed that I felt much better. If fact, I was now incredibly relieved because one of the most trying weeks in the Core was now behind me. Now it was time for the festivities...

     One of the LGOs' favorite Thursday hangouts is the Thirsty Ear, and after our exams, this was the perfect place to blow off some steam. After a fun game night at another LGO's place, we all headed to the Thirsty to sing some karaoke and imbibe some low cost beverages. The cool thing about the Thirsty is that it is on campus and is in a dorm. The bad thing about the Thirsty is that it is on campus and in a dorm so we have to shut down at 12:30. Here is a picture of some regulars:

     This past weekend, one of the LGOs graciously invited us all to participate in what I consider to be a great form of fellowship and cultural learning: a pig roast. Being from Texas, we typically put our meat in a smoker or on the BBQ pit, but this time, something was getting roasted on a spit Lord of the Flies style. I volunteered to drive up early and help prepare the feast. Below is a picture of the me manning the fire. Great memories. ...

If you are an LGO with a family, you have extra duties in making sure that you are nurturing and providing support. This weekend at the pig roast was another time for the LGOs with families to bring them out and enjoy a picturesque outing in New Hampshire. There were horses, carriages, food, laughter, and joy. Truly having a family and being an LGO is probably one of the best situations to be in.

Life as an LGO in the fall

Fall is a time for change in Boston. The temperature, along with the foliage, is slowly changing indicating the start of another class of MBA students at MIT. For an MBA student at Sloan, the time in the beginning is some of the most exciting, as well as the most demanding. At MIT, a first-year (a first year MBA student) begins the Sloan Core. The courses are Economic Analysis for Business Decisions, Financial Accounting, Communication for Leaders, and Operational Processes. The core is special at MIT as you get all the classes that you need to take finished in one semester which give you incredible freedom in what you can take later on in the program. Although you work pretty consistently during the week, you also find time to network and build relationships with fellow students. This is usually through an activity such as a C-Function, trek, or simply going out to a local pub. As an MBA student, your network is just as important as the skills that you pick up in class. So the impetus for building this network and making connections should be given equal weight throughout the program. As an LGO, I find that one of my greatest challenges is to balance what I like to call the "activity deluge." To put it simply, you have to decide what NOT to do instead of what to do. For example, any given day of the week that ends in y, you could potentially be: 1) Getting caught up on reading, studying, engineering/business homework 2) Going to a company informational session 3) Attending a hackathon or start-up meeting 4) Playing a sport with other sloanies 5) Partying with other classmates celebrating being done with step 1 (only for a night) 6) Attending a guest lecture on some interesting subject 7) Going to a club meeting such as the MIT dance team, or cycle team, etc 8) Getting caught up on sleep :) 9) the list goes on. There is literally something to do every minute of every day you are in this program. This forces you to use some sort of organizational tool to schedule everything you want to squeeze in during the week. I prefer gmail calendar but some folks get by with gasp, a written calendar book. Truly, deciding what not to do is a great position to be in and you can pick out the things that matter most to you. For me personally, I want to experience everything that Sloan and the LGO program has to offer. This usually means less sleep and rest. I couldn't be happier. Here are just a few fun photos: This is from the Polar Beverage Plant Tour (awesome experience)

The is from the 80's C-Function Party (great night!)

This is my great summer core team (I really miss those peeps, they are awesome)

Summertime and the livin is easy?

The summer portion of the LGO program is one of the busiest and "most awesome" times according to many LGOs. In fact one of the cool things we had the pleasure of experiencing together was building planes for our Lean Tools class. This 8 hour marathon session teaches you about the importance of improving (leaning) your process, determining waste, finding the root cause, takt time, cycle time, touch time, etc. My team (infinit8) help set the record for plane building in this specific class session, and this wouldn't have been possible if we didn't use Lean principles.

What you see here is my team's attempt to corner the double capacity jet market. Special thanks to Ryan for constructing the jet engines. We also get to do some fun "mathy" things, especially in our System Optimization class. For an example:

This is a revenue maximization during markdown periods problem. Fun. Many folks get overwhelmed at the amount of work, readings, and cases that needs to get done. And what is likely impossible for one, becomes much more tenable, and enjoyable, when working in the summer teams of 6. That is a time to really get to know your classmates and it makes the whole summer way more easy. Here is my team; I couldn't be more impressed with them.

Andreas wasn't in that picture. So here he is being the first one up the obstacle on Thomson Island.

Yeah. Summertime and the livins easy...

Finding Time to Relax and Enjoy the Tech Dingies

When you jump on the LGO train, you will find it very easy to immerse yourself in a myriad of tasks and activities, and once the train of readings, cases, p-sets, and meetings gets going, the ability to jump off and enjoy the amenities at MIT is a challenge. As an LGO, I have become quite judicious with my free time and I have picked up activities and hobbies that provide nourishment to my soul and body in some aspect. Sailing at MIT was something that I absolutely had to try and the picture above was taken at my very first sailing class, given on Sunday's at the MIT Sailing Pavilion. How many universities have a sailing pavilion 100 m from campus which allows you to learn and operate a "tech dingy" with impunity? That day on the Charles was a remarkable one indeed, firstly because I was able to experience it with another LGO, and secondly, as we were able to tack, jibe, and dock the boat without ending up in the drink. That day is one that no one should miss. Just a few of the other notable activities that LGO's are participating in are: An LGO game days sundays Basketball games fridays Karaoke nights on thursdays

The Universe Within: A Beginning

The Universe Within, taught by John S. Carroll at MIT, is the first course you experience as a nascent LGO student, and the name conjures an enigmatic vast expanse contained within, that is, within you, within MIT, and ultimately within the LGO Program. After an amazing introduction from Don Rosenfield, the Director of the LGO program, the LGO students found themselves sailing promptly through the universe within on a course that explores leadership at its core. Where we will end up I am not sure, but one thing I can be sure about is that we will be better leaders when we get there.