Course Selection

Course Registration

Registration at MIT Sloan involves two major aspects for the student:

  • Satisfying the contractual agreement with MIT
  • Keeping the MBA Program Office and MIT Sloan Educational Services informed of which subjects the student is currently taking, as well as independent study projects, thesis progress, and any other items that relate to department requirements or policies

MIT Sloan Educational Services collects or processes most official forms from the student and transmits them to the MIT Registrar’s Office on the student’s behalf.

Specifically, Fall and Spring Registration involves:

  • Pre-Registration (including MIT Sloan course bidding)
  • Registration advising (TBD)
  • Online registration prior to the start of the fall or spring semester
  • Add/Drop course adjustments
  • Application for Advanced Degree, completed online via WebSIS in the final term prior to graduation

The Sloan Course Browser provides course scheduling information, course descriptions, faculty profiles, and syllabi for Sloan classes. The MIT Subject Listing & Schedule lists course descriptions and scheduling information for all MIT classes.

Pre-Registration

MIT uses a web-based pre-registration system to plan enrollment.

  • Returning MIT Sloan MBA students who opt to take only MIT Sloan classes pre-register through the MIT Sloan course bidding process (see below). To pre-register for non-MIT Sloan courses, students must use WebSIS.
  • Entering MIT Sloan MBA students have their required first term Fall Core subjects automatically pre-registered for them and choose, through the onboarding process, one of four elective options (required): Managerial Finance, 15.401; Introduction to Operations Management, 15.761; Marketing Innovation 15.814; or Competitive Strategy, 15.900; and one of three Certificate Seminars (optional): Entrepreneurship & Innovation Proseminar , 15.S22/15.360; Introduction to the Practice of Finance, 15.403; or Enterprise Management (EM) Lab, 15.830.
  • Students confirm their pre-registered classes at the time of registration.

Course Bidding

Bidding is required for students who plan to enroll in MIT Sloan subjects. Bidding is handled by the Sloan Course Bidding system, managed by MIT Sloan Educational Services. This prioritization process runs parallel to MIT’s pre-registration process and allows MIT Sloan to allocate supply and demand within a market-based framework for unrestricted elective courses (i.e., subjects that are not reserved for specific groups such as doctoral, interdepartmental, or undergraduate students). The system also takes into account faculty teaching loads, classroom capacity, and MIT Sloan’s status as a professional school within the larger Institute.

Detailed course bidding procedures are explained in full to continuing students via the web, email, informational sessions, MBA Program cohort advisors, and other internal communication channels as the pre-registration period for the next term approaches.

Basic course bidding guidelines include the following:

  • Bidding for a term’s courses takes place in several rounds. Spring term course bidding begins in early December, on a date to be determined. Fall term course bidding begins early May.
  • MIT Sloan Educational Services publicizes and manages deadlines, processes bids, assures data integrity, passes successful bid results to the MIT Registrar’s Office, and posts individual results on the web.
  • The student’s interaction with the bidding process is straightforward. The website is protected by a login and password. The student is provided with 1,000 points per semester as a “bid budget” to allocate among course choices, keeping in mind their schedule and degree requirements, the number of seats available in each class, and the MBA Program’s credit load maximum.
  • Course Bidding is a prioritization system designed to assure that MIT Sloan students gain access to MIT Sloan classes prior to non-MIT Sloan students. Prioritization status increases as students get closer to Commencement, i.e., a second-year MBA student will have a higher level of prioritization than a first-year MBA. Both, however, will gain seats before a non-MIT Sloan student.
  • MIT Sloan’s course bidding process and MIT’s pre-registration process run in parallel. Successful bids will be uploaded to the MIT Registrar’s Office, where the information will be provided for confirmation prior to the start of the semester.
  • Bidding may also be used for mid-semester SIP workshop selection. A separate budget of bid points will be allocated for SIP bidding and is refreshed each SIP period.

Registration

Each semester students will be provided their pre-registration to confirm. Registration is the contract for services at MIT and must be verified by both the student and an MIT Sloan registration officer. Some changes to course enrollments may be made prior to verification. Other changes, such as adding a closed course, require faculty approval and must be completed via the online Add/Drop form (see below). Changes after having submitted online registration are made through the online Add/ Drop process described below.

Add/Drop Adjustments

Making any changes to your registration status (i.e., adding and/or dropping courses) after submitting your online registration requires an online Add/Drop form. Deadlines to make changes vary based on whether the class is full term or half term (H1, H2, H3 or H4). It is important for students to check the MIT Academic Calendar for deadlines to add, drop, and change the status classes. An example deadline for adding full-term subjects is the fifth week of classes and the example deadline for dropping full-term courses is the 11th week of classes.

If a student is considering dropping a course, it is best to make the decision to drop as early as possible. This allows the student to concentrate on those courses they intend to complete and frees up seats for other interested students who are on wait lists. Note that students are unable to add MIT Sloan courses that have closed or filled as a result of bidding, unless specifically offered a seat from a wait list. (First-year students take the Core in its entirety, so there are no adds or drops in the first Fall semester, except in the case of the one elective and/or Track Seminar during the first weeks of class.) Students may not exceed their credit limit when adding courses throughout the term.

Add, drop, and status changes are not complete until the form has been fully approved and the student takes the final step on their form by clicking “Submit to Registrar”. This will commit the change to the registration record. Students are strongly encouraged to submit their forms well before a deadline to allow enough time for Instructor and advisor review. Sloan Educational Services can guarantee forms in their queue will be reviewed until 5PM EST on the day of a deadline. Students have until midnight 11:59PM EST to take the final step and click “Submit to Registrar” to commit their change to their registration. Any late changes require a $50 late fee and a late Graduate Petition Form with additional review from the Office of Graduate Education. It is important to review your pending forms often and take care to read email messages and reminders from MIT and Sloan Educational Services in full to avoid missing an important deadline.

More information can be found in this Add/Drop Guide for Students.

Half-Term Subjects

Half-term subjects (H1,H2, H3, H4) are handled in similar fashion to the above but with appropriate deadlines for the beginning and ending of classes. The rules for adding courses apply equally to H1, H2, H3, H4, and full semester courses; students must get the instructor’s approval on the online Add/Drop form.

Interdepartmental Classes and Cross-Registration Procedures

MBA students may count a maximum of three non-MIT Sloan graduate-level elective courses (i.e., from other MIT departments or Harvard) toward the MIT Sloan degree elective requirement. Courses taken in another MIT department or as a cross-registrant count toward the units-per-semester credit limit. At least half of the units a student is registered for must be at MIT in any given semester. Sloan students must register for the Sloan course number in any subject that is taught jointly with another department.

Students wishing to take graduate courses in other departments at MIT can pre-register for these courses via WebSIS or add them using the online registration form or online add/drop form. Foreign language classes and physical education courses (non-credit) also have lotteries and special registration procedures. Please note that courses taken elsewhere at MIT must have graduate-level designations to count toward the MBA or SM degree. For those courses with a designation other than graduate, students should consult with their advisor in the MBA Program Office.

For MIT Sloan students wanting to cross-register at Harvard, additional information can be found on the Harvard University Course Catalog website, where students can get course, schedule, and registration information. Harvard cross-registration is open to MIT students in the Fall and Spring terms only, there is no cross-registration in IAP or Summer semesters. Harvard does not allow cross-registrants to take their courses under the Listener status.

Course Evaluations

At the end of every semester, students complete evaluations for all of their MIT courses. These evaluations are managed by MIT Sloan Educational Services and, with the exception of the qualitative comments, are made available to students. Students may use these evaluations as a resource during the course bidding process as they choose the next semester’s courses.