First, some of my key takeaways:
1. Don’t stress out.
2. Turn it into a conversation by inviting them into your story. This takes vulnerability, but pays dividends. My interviewer, at the end, said that he’d like to stay in touch as a mentor.
3. You need to be able to communicate how what you accomplished is valuable to the London Business School, and be specific. Don’t just say what you did, relate it to how you will take that experience and use it to enrich LBS in these three ways.
Here are the questions I was asked:
1. Walk me through your résumé. (Thank God! Allowed me to set proper context for the rest of the interview, because essentially he was asking me to tell him my story.)
2. Specifics about roles in companies.
3. I work in business development/digital marketing, so he asked how I got some of the clients I did.
4. Why MBA? (Convince them that the MBA is mandatory for your next step in life. Make up your mind, be very concrete. I want to work in this type of consulting, here’s why, and LBS is the mandatory step.)
5. I run a start-up, so he asked: Why don’t you just continue what you’re doing?
6. Why LBS? What makes London Business School unique? (Know this! It needs to be differentiated, not generic. If you could give the same answer for INSEAD, or Harvard, then you’re not answering the question.)
7. What are you going to do if you don’t get in?
8. What are your objectives for the program? What do you want to get out of it?
9. What will you do over the summer quarter if you get in?
10. What role will you play in your small group?
11. How will you handle tough situations with people very different from you?
12. I’m married, so he asked me if my wife is prepared?
The presentation was at the end. He gave me 2 (yes, TWO) minutes to prepare, and 5 minutes to present.
