The following UPenn / Wharton interview questions and report were submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant. Good luck to them!
I scheduled my Team Based Discussion for the last window of the day (3:30) so that I could have time to visit a class and talk with students beforehand. In retrospect, given the TBD format, I would have been much better served getting it out of the way earlier in the day, as my visit didn’t impact my interview at all and it was unfortunate to have it hanging over my head as I kept talking with other interviewees who had already finished theirs. Keep this in mind, especially if you’ve already had the chance to visit Wharton before and feel well equipped for why Wharton fits in with your career plans.
As for the TBD itself, my group worked together fairly well. I don’t think our final result was excellent by any means, but there were no conflicts and several points where we were laughing and really building off of each others’ ideas. The time goes by incredibly quickly. While I was a bit nervous going in, I actually really enjoyed the exercise and it definitely improved my image of Wharton.
A few specific points of advice based on my experience:
- Make sure you keep your opening pitch to 1 minute. It’s obvious when you go too long and doesn’t exactly endear you to the rest of your team or the second years watching you.
- Don’t feel like your idea needs to be picked in order for you to make a good impression. It’s obvious, but it’s more important that you’re helping the group grow the plan, adding new ideas, and helping to bring in people who may not be saying as much.
- The end presentation part is incredibly awkward, since you’re basically going from talking about who will say what with two observers… to then repeating what you just said but directed to those observers. This tripped me up a bit and I think our group would have been better served by just having one person “present” and wrap everything in rather than a disjointed combination of 4 out of the 6 of us.
One on one interview after had 4 questions and time for me to ask a few questions:
- How did you feel about your group’s discussion?
- What role do you usually play in team settings?
- Describe a time when you’ve had difficulty working in a team
- What else do you want Wharton to know?
All in all, the more comfortable and positive you can be throughout, the better you’ll probably come across.
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