The following Stanford MBA interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 1 applicant who was accepted. Congratulations to them!
My interview was scheduled for 4:15pm on a Friday – this was a bad choice (duh!). My interviewer came in 10 minutes late and had to leave precisely on time, so what I thought would be a 45-75 min interview was only 35 minutes. The interviewer also seemed tired and disengaged. My advice: schedule something Tuesday or Wednesday morning.
I had also prepped too much for this interview — two mock interviews, read every anecdote online that I could find, and pre-answered 50 potential questions. In the end, I got the most basic questions you could imagine:
– Tell me about your background
– Leadership example
– Strengths/weaknesses
– Why MBA?
– Why Stanford?
– Long-term goals
I say that I prepped too much because each of my answers were too polished. My interviewer genuinely wanted to keep it conversational and I found myself veering into long-winded answers. I felt that I had good answers to the questions, but had a difficult time molding them to the format. My advice: prep the high-level bullet-points for the questions listed above and rehearse them once or twice in your head. You can answer the 50 extra questions if you want, but the alumni are not there to stump you.
In the end, I was fortunately admitted to the Stanford GSB despite leaving the interview a bit unsettled. My advice: don’t put too much pressure on the interview, don’t over-prepare, and have a casual conversation with a cool alumnus.
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