I had my interview in December 2010, and the rejection letter from Kellogg just reinforced what I anticipated. The interviewer was a 2002 graduate from Kellogg, based in South-East Asia and working for a leading consulting firm. Firstly, the interviewer did not confirm the timing, and later I had to call/SMS to finalize it. The location provided was incorrect, but knowing the place I guessed and reached it much before time. He was not only hostile throughout, but came across as someone who had made-up his mind beforehand.
The interview was told to be scheduled for an hour but lasted 50 min. He barely let me speak a sentence or two and interrupted each time. He seemed to have strong opinions of why a person of a non-traditional background should go for alternative coursework, and not an MBA. He asked me questions such as – leadership role, situational etc. but before I spoke even two sentences, he interrupted. This happened quite often, and I personally do not think it a good interviewing technique, even if he was trying to do it as a stress-interview (I too work for a consulting firm and have been through multiple rounds and types of interviews). The interviewer seemed to have been disinterested in my profile to the extent that when I sent a thank-you note, he copy-pasted my first sentence – I wrote “It was nice meeting you”, and he copied it back and added “too” to it (the font colors and styles differ and the specific text was missing from my original mail below his reply).
Overall, it was a unique experience – never had it before and after (have interviewed with other top global schools). I hope that the interviewers are trained to be more focused on understanding the alignemnet rather than having a pre-decided mindset.
