Description of visit and interview atmosphere: I visited the school before the early action deadline and had my interview during the visit. I had also scheduled to attend a class in the morning, followed by lunch with current students. My interview was in the afternoon. I had specifically scheduled my interview on Friday so I could attend “Fuqua Friday” and experience the diverse and super friendly Fuqua community firsthand.
The interviews are held in the interview rooms in the admissions lounge. While we, prospective students, waited in the admissions lounge for our interview, I was pleasantly surprised to see how frequently first-year and second-year students stopped by the admissions lounge to chat with us, to discuss their MBA experiences at Fuqua, and to address any questions we had.
Overall, it was an extremely friendly atmosphere throughout my visit. You can truly experience “Team Fuqua” while interacting with students. They were extremely generous in offering their help and addressing my questions.
Type of interview: My interview was with a second-year student, who had not seen my application. At Fuqua, the interviews are typically blind i.e., the interviewers have not read your application before the interview. The interviews are considered as an additional data point in your overall application.
The interviewer started off the conversation by introducing herself followed by handing over her card to me (which was part of the initial formality), so I could reach out to her in case I had any questions later on and couldn’t discuss during the interview (due to time constraints). The interviews are typically 30-40 minutes.
List of interview questions:
1. Walk me through your background/resume.
2. Why MBA?
3. Post-MBA goals.
4. Why Fuqua?
5. Fuqua is proud of the diversity of students. What would you contribute to this diversity? What would you uniquely bring to the Fuqua community?
6. Discuss your recent leadership experience, especially an account of an experience in which you led a project but didn’t reach a desired outcome or had a conflict with a team member. How did you deal with situation or the conflict?
7. Hobbies and activities outside work.
8. Any questions I wanted ask.
Commentary: The interview was very conversational. While the questions were not out of the ordinary, it seemed the interviewer truly wanted to gauge my fit to the school. My overall campus visit and interview experience only accentuated my awesome impression of the school.
