I participated in an interview day at Oxford SBS, along with about 30 other applicants who had travelled from literally all four corners of the earth to be there – USA, Australia, Canada, Nigeria, the Middle East etc.
Upon arrival, we were all given a welcome packet which contained a guide to the interview process and a short bio of our individual interviewers, before being shown to a conference room, where we chatted amongst ourselves and mingled with a faculty member and adcom staff while everyone got their individual interviews out of the way. We then had a group tour of the school facilities and nearby Worcester College, where a buffet lunch was served, before sitting in on an afternoon class.
Various school staff were assigned as interviewers. Some people were interviewed by faculty or adcom members while my interview was with the school careers director. In general, most people seemed to think their interviews went pretty well. There were no trick questions and the school seemed genuinely interested in every candidate who had been invited for an interview.
My interview took place in the careers director’s office. He had read my entire application and had my file on his desk. He seemed familiar with it because he was able to ask quite specific questions without referring back to the file or to any notes.
I was asked:
– Why do I feel the need to do an MBA at all, given the level of my career success to date?
– Why a full-time MBA instead of a part-time or an executive education program?
– Why Oxford SBS?
– Expand a little further on the career goals I wrote about in my essays.
– Where else have I applied and what is the status of those applications?
– How would I choose if I received more than one admission offer?
The tone of the interview was “business casual” – professional but conversational with some elements of humor. After the initial flurry of questions, he commented that my answers had made sense to him and then asked if I had any questions.
We rounded out the session with some general chit chat before finishing exactly on time.
