adMIT weekend

welcome to my b-school blog! having just gotten back from the Round 2 adMIT weekend, it's a perfect time for me to start blogging about my b-school experience.

i hitched a ride with Barath, another R2 adMIT last Thursday. we'd known each other for all of 5 days at that point, having met at a NY/NJ adMITs event the previous Saturday. it was pretty indicative of how adMIT weekend was and, i'm sure, how the whole Sloan experience will be. during adMIT weekend, i met so many current students and admitted ones that were amazing, friendly, and easy to connect with people.

on Thursdsay night there was a student-organized c-function (consumption-function) at Tavern in the Square in Central Square. it got packed pretty quickly, but it was tough to tell who was a student, a fellow admit, or just a random person in the wrong section. i mostly talked to current students, and got some good insights into life as a Sloanie. one of the impressions was that there are definitely the Sloanies that party hard. myself not being the biggest partyer, opted to call it a night around 11:30 and head back to my friend's apartment.

the next morning started bright and early. according to the schedule, registration and coffee was 8 - 8:45 AM. i showed up around 8:30 thinking most people would be gunning for the 8:45 time (the welcome message was at 9 AM). i was surprised to see a ton of people already there. after walking through the door, i was promptly greeted and given an MIT Sloan School of Management t-shirt, messenger bag, pen, as well as a name-tag, and welcome folder.

i proceded to get a bagel, some fruit, and orange juice, and started to meet tons of new people. i won't delve too deeply into other details so not to spoil the experience for future adMITs, but the three main points that they highlighted that are valuable to know if you're considering MIT Sloan were:

1. The MIT and Sloan brands open doors. Many people cited how surprised at the degree of help they got by just saying they were MIT/Sloan students. Obviously MIT is a well-recognized school, but people were still surprised at the extent to which it opened doors.
2. Sloan's integration with the rest of the MIT campus and departments. Sloan students have open access to a wealth of MIT's other resources, and cooperation between departments is encouraged. A big one for those, like me, interested in entrepreneurship and tech innovation is the freedom to work with those in MIT's engineering and computer science departments.
3. The people. Even the faculty and administration recommended to us from the first welcome message to get to know the other admits around us, since, with a high yield from those that attend adMIT weekend, it was very likely the people we met would be our classmates for the two years ahead. The existing first and second year students exemplified the things that we were told; students that pursued innovative solutions and to make significant impacts on the MIT community and world at large.

the experience made me super psyched to dive in and become an active member of this community and to get to know my fellow Sloanies better. i'm sure the two years will be hectic and busy, but will also be one of my most memorable life experiences, and fly by all too quickly.