Interview Questions (that I can remember) in roughly the order I received them:
Any updates to your application?
Tell me more about your data visualization and why it’s important to you.
Tell me about how your organization has done in the past 12 months.
Follow-up: How did you motivate your team (in this situation)?
What was your greatest accomplishment in the past 12 months?
Tell me about a time when you challenged or pushed back against someone.
Follow-up: How did you convince that organization (in this situation)?
Tell me about a time when you had a difficult time working with someone.
Follow-up: Describe more of your approach to that person (in this situation)?
Follow-up: How did the person take this feedback (in this situation)?
Why MBA?
Why now?
Why Sloan?
How would you contribute?
Anything we haven’t talked about that you would like to mention?
Commentary:
No admissions decision yet. I had a good idea of what to expect based on past interview reports here (thanks community!), and the interview lasted ~35 min (20+ min of his questions; ~10 min of my questions). The interviewer had read my entire application. Unlike past reports / conversations with students, I did not think my interviewer was “cold” or any harder to read than any other school’s interviewer. That was a pleasant surprise. The interviewer smiled often and structured the interview such that it was fairly conversational. Although Sloan is focused on past performance, I talked a bunch about my goals in my answers and discussed it to some length with my data visualization. I don’t use data super meaningfully at work, so I chose one based on my career goals to show a different side of me in the application. My advice is to know your stories. The interviewer asked detailed follow-up questions regarding my stories. In particular, I was asked about how I convinced or motivated people or organizations. Given MIT Sloan’s themes, I tried to allude to how I used data to convince people and how I was collaborative. In retrospect, I think I could have smiled more and have been more upbeat or refreshing. I found the interviewer’s email address on the MIT Sloan website and sent a thank-you email, to which the interviewer responded.
