The following UPenn / Wharton interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 HCM applicant was who admitted. Congratulations to them!
I was a Health Care Management applicant so I had the pleasure of completing two interview sessions! The first was the Wharton Team Based Discussion (TBD). I arrived about ten minutes early. This gave me time to socialize with my team ahead of time, and I can’t recommend this strongly enough. Knowing each person’s name as well as a bit about them made our overall discussion much simpler.
Logistically it was very similar to most others’ experience. The two 2nd year students introduced themselves, had each of us introduce ourself (again), then we each had a minute to pitch our ideas. Our seating arrangements were predetermined and I happened to have a great view of the timer so I volunteered to keep us on track in that regard. Everyone did very well with keeping to under 1 minute, and there was a loose theme that everyone touched on in their idea. We decided to strengthen that theme and make it the general topic of our proposed conference. With about 4 minutes left we pitched the entire thing and ended about 30 seconds early – perfect! Afterwards I had a brief ten-minute interview with one of the two observers. That felt pretty rushed but that was my fault. I felt as though I had to speed through things…don’t do what I did! Stay relaxed, he asked very predictable questions so you should be plenty prepared and don’t speed through. Do as you practice!
After all of that I went to the HCM building which is about a block and a half away. There I met with the Associate Director of the program and had a 30-40 minute discussion. This was sooooo much more conversational than I was planning. I think I answered about 2 MBA-ish questions and then she led the conversation to talking about my hometown, my undergrad school, and people that she knows at my company! I took the relaxed nature of the conversation as a good omen.
Last words of advice – If you’re able to, set up your interview for Thursday. If you do that, you get to take part in Wharton Pub (for free). It was a great way to decompress after a long day of being “on” for interviews. On the TBD – don’t be over aggressive but don’t feel like you need to be agreeable to everything. At one point I felt like we were heading off-track and it was impacting time so I said something and suggested a topic to refocus the group. The key is still to be a team player…so just don’t make anyone hate you!
I found out that I was admitted on the Round 2 decision day and I intend to attend Wharton in the fall!
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