The following UPenn / Wharton interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 1 applicant who was admitted. Congratulations to them!
My day at Wharton started with lunch in a large classroom. I was able to network with a few current students, and more importantly, other applicants. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND being chatty with a bunch of the applicants. As it turns out, I was able to network with every single person that ended up being in my group, which made for a pleasant and more comfortable experience. You have time in the admissions office both before and after lunch as well to network. Something odd though – one girl in my group was someone I knew very well from work as well as my undergraduate university (I guess they don’t really randomize…).
The discussion started with two second-year facilitators explaining the process and reading the prompt. You are timed with an iPAD counting down on the center of the table. The facilitators just observe quietly.
We began with our pitches. I volunteered to go first and gave a very concise and clear 55 second pitch. Others followed suit. I will say it was noticeable who had prepared as some pitches went on well past a minute and were less concrete. After that, someone volunteered to provide timing and structure to the discussion. It then took us a long time to come up with our idea. Someone suggested merging ideas into one, which was a bit hard to do as the topics were entirely different. It ended with us voting between two merged ideas and selecting a rather vague one. Personally, I would have preferred we just pick one idea to narrow the scope, but I wasn’t quite sure how to say that tactfully, so I remained quiet there. I’m also not sure how voting looked to the observers.
I thought the discussion was a bit haphazard with people throwing out ideas left and right and not particularly building on each other. But I’m thinking that is too be expected with six entirely different personalities in the room. We also ended up not being able to get through everything we agreed to discuss since we weren’t super organized for the first half and had to pull something together for the final presentation. Ultimately, we were able to organize our ideas into a fairly cohesive presentation in the time allowed. Everyone was very agreeable and worked together well. A few people were maybe stronger than others, but I left feeling like the experience didn’t make or break anyone’s applications. As long as you are cooperative and contribute in some way, I think you probably do fine. It was a fairly pleasant and non-threatening experience.
Then, we were brought back to the admissions holding room to wait for our 1-on-1s. Our two observers took three people back each, one at a time. I was second and met with the second-year student for 10 minutes. It went by in a flash. The interviewer asked “how did the exercise go?”. I used that time to discuss my role during the exercise compared with how I usually am on teams. I provided examples of myself as both a leader and a follower. (I heard other people used that time to comment on the group’s performance rather than their own). She then asked “what do you want to do with an MBA?” I explained my career goals and why Wharton is the perfect place for me to achieve them. Then, she let me ask her a few questions. I asked about her experiences at Wharton, on learning teams, with her job, and moving from her home country. I left with a very positive feeling regarding how I utilized my time.
In the end, I was ACCEPTED Round 1. Dream come true! Best of luck to everyone!
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