Mr. AI & Robotics

Right off the bat, I want to hear more about what inspires you when it comes to AI and Robotics!! And I’d also love to hear what you learned during your two internships (I like the different exposure you’ve had, that’s for sure). Your stats look great, and schools will appreciate the international perspective you’d be able to add to the classroom. The schools will want to see evidence of how and why your “smarts” have mattered – and how you’ve stepped into leadership roles (big or small, formal or informal) and pushed for impact. Between your academics, your involvement in sports & clubs, and your drive, I am certain you’ll have stories to draw on. Also… Kellogg just announced its own deferral program – could be an excellent play, given its strength with CPG companies. Good luck!!

Hi Mr. AI & Robotics! Kate Richardson, Senior Admissions Consultant here. One positive that jumps out at me is your background spanning New Zealand, China, and the UK as schools will love that international exposure, and applicants from New Zealand are not the most common. AI and Robotics are certainly hot fields, and your interests play well to MIT’s strengths of course. I like that you’re able to balance out your technical interests with leadership in university activities and sports too. And your internship sounds like very valuable experience related to your goals. I am concerned that your goals are a bit too broad — Tech and CPG are very different industries and there are lots of roles for MBAs within them. So make sure you can point a finer point on your ideal post MBA role and what kind of impact you want to have eventually. Your GMAT / GPA stats are of course great too! MIT’s acceptance rate is only about 12%, and though your profile lines up very well with what the early admit programs are looking for, they can be quite selective. That was my thinking behind putting your odds just below 50% for MIT, and I’d put them a notch lower for HBS and probably Wharton too.

Hello, I’m Lisa Cummings of Stratus Admissions, formerly of the Sloan Adcomm. As you know and as Kate notes, the early admit programs are very competitive and rather new at Sloan so data is hard to come by. Your international experience and exposure will resonate with schools and your stats are solid. However, you are applying from a very competitive part of the pool. That said, someone has to get in so why not you! I like your leadership as basketball team captain, was that in uni or elsewhere? Did you lead any initiatives on the British-Chinese students association? Schools love students who can work across cultures and bring groups together, especially Sloan with its collaborative model. You may be able to draw some good stories from those experiences. Spend some time really thinking about where you want to go post degree as you will need to be much more specific about your short term goals so you can address the Why MBA question. The Why Sloan question should be easy for you, while Sloan looks to fill a diverse class, your strengths in quant will be an added bonus and you could take full advantage of their Labs in AI and Robotics, at Sloan and across the campus. Who knows you could end up running their famous Sports Analytics Conference! Best of luck.