I had my interview with an alum in a lounge, the environment was relaxed. The interview I thought was tough considering I had no financial background. Adcom says that all interviews are blind (which I think is true) and behavioral. Well mine was only partly behavioral. You be the judge. Some of the questions I remember:
1. Why an MBA?
2. Can you tell me 2 things that make HBS better than Wharton? (I thought this question was strange because he didn’t aske me what schools I applied to. I didn’t even apply to HBS and hence didn’t do a lot of research on that school, so I told him why I think Wharton is good and that I didn’t aply to HBS)
3. In that case, can you tell me 2 things that make Stanford a better school?
4. If you had 100 million dollars to invest in a company, what kind of company would you invest in?
5. How would you decide on the financial soundness of the above company?
6. If you were to build a mall, how would you design it? (This question went for a while as I tried to get exactly what he wanted)
7. If you had to build this mall on 2 floors what stores would you put on the first vs second floor? Why?
8. What do you think of the airline industry? Do you think it is profitable? (Again very strange….I don’t have a business background and only know a little bit about the airline industry’s business model) He then proceeded to explain that airline business is a loss-making one.
9. Can you tell me three things that cause these losses?
10. If tomorrow, you were asked to become the CEO of Citicorp, how would you improve their stock price?
11. At your previous company, tell me 3 things that caused the stock price to go down?
12. Tell me what makes you unique or what makes you stand out. (I was expecting these sorts of questions)
13. Tell me 2 things that you did that you think are extraordinary.
After this gruelling session (which lasted an hour), he explained to me how Wharton is different from the other top schools. He was also very forthcoming in telling me that Wharton is very finance intensive and that the curriculum is extremely rigorous.
