MIT Sloan School of Management, part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has its roots in a subject designed to teach engineers how to be managers. These days its scope is much wider – famous alumni of its MBA include Kofi Annan, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and former Secretary-General of the UN; Benjamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister of Israel; and Carly Fiorina, the former president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard – but it still has a reputation for uniting academic theory with practical application.

Vital statistics. The two-year programme is built around several core subjects, including economic analysis, organisational processes and financial accounting, plus a wide variety of elective courses. Students need to choose classes that cover leadership, research and practice. The average member of MIT Sloan’s Class of 2008 is 28 with five years of full-time work experience and a GMAT of 710; however, all applications are assessed individually and there is no minimum requirement in terms of either experience or GMAT score. Tuition for 2007-08 is $44,556 (£21,666).

Rankings. MIT Sloan is 18th in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Which MBA? guide 2006 and 14th in ft.com’s Global MBA rankings 2007.

Work experience. Each semester sandwiches a week of experiential learning between the coursework; students undertake summer internships between the first and second years.

International experience. Students arrange internships and “tech treks” – networking events – in countries from Cuba to Cameroon.

Employment record. More than half of MIT Sloan’s alumni are senior executives and 20 per cent have become president or CEO. Graduates have also founded more than 650 companies. Ninety-four per cent of graduates had found work within three months.

Application deadline: applications for the course beginning in August 2009 will open shortly. An admission event will be held in London on October 10.

Sources: mitsloan.mit.edu/mba; ft.com; mba.eiu.com

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