What generic AI gets wrong with this prompt
Sloan is the only top program that asks for a cover letter instead of an essay, and generic AI — trained on a million MBA essays and comparatively few personal cover letters — keeps writing the wrong document.
It inflates adjectives where MIT wants evidence
“A seasoned, results-driven leader passionate about innovation” — generic AI escalates adjectives because they’re free. MIT’s prompt is a dare to prove it. Every unproven descriptor spends credibility this letter needs, at the school with the least patience for unsupported claims.
Ask your AI — “List every adjective this draft applies to me. For each one, quote the sentence that proves it with something I did. Which adjectives are standing alone?”
It closes on a fifteen-year vision
Generic AI ends MBA writing with a grand future — CEO of the revolutionary company — because goal essays dominate its training data. This letter isn’t that document. Sloan’s question is whether you’ve done real things and how you’d grow next; a distant vision in a cover letter reads as changing the subject away from evidence.
Ask your AI — “Does my final paragraph pitch what I’ve proven and how I’d grow, or does it forecast a distant future? What replaces the forecast if I cut it?”
It retells projects step by step
Given a project, generic AI transcribes it — first we scoped, then we built, then we launched — because your inputs arrive as chronology. A cover letter isn’t a project log. Each story earns its place only by proving one capability the pitch claims, and the capability should be visible from the story’s first line.
Ask your AI — “For each example in my draft, what single capability is it there to prove — and is that clear from the example’s first sentence, or only after the walkthrough?”