Interviews
Published: March 14, 2016
Berkeley / Haas Interview Report: Round 2 / Alumnus / Off-campus
The following Berkeley / Haas interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant. Good luck to them! I interviewed with a recent Haas alum in London at her office. We were in a conference room setting, which felt quite formal (similar to a job interview). But the alum was very friendly and down to earth. She said she had only seen my CV and not the rest of my application, so she assured me it’s fine to repeat things from my essays. She also checked my ID. We started off with the usual “walk me through your résumé” where
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Published: March 14, 2016
Berkeley / Haas Interview Report: Round 1 / Second-year Student / On-Campus
The following Berkeley / Haas interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 1 applicant. Good luck to them! I applied to Haas in the 1st round. I thought the interview went really well. I could get a good sense that the school was concerned with fit…more so than other interviews I did. Overall, the tone was informal and quite conversational. It didn’t seem scripted. The interviewer didn’t read questions from script but did take notes. I’m guessing with admissions season in full swing; this was not the interviewer’s first session. The interviewer did have a copy of my résumé.
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Published: March 14, 2016
Berkeley / Haas Interview Report: Round 2 / First-year student / on-campus
The following Berkeley / Haas interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant. Good luck to them! This was a highly conversational interview. The interviewer was engaging and seemed genuinely interested in the process. She had a copy of my résumé, though it was not necessarily ‘blind’ according to Berkeley’s own website. Standard questions: • Walk me through your résumé? • Clarification of goals • Why Haas? Why MBA? • How would you contribute to the community? There weren’t (nor would there be for you) any surprises, other
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Published: March 14, 2016
Stanford MBA Interview Report: Round 2 / Alumnus / Off-campus
The following Stanford MBA interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant. I met with my alumni interviewer at a public place – the environment was relaxed and casual. I emailed my interviewer my résumé beforehand per Stanford’s instructions. I also printed out a copy – which was much appreciated by my interviewer. My interviewer was an older alum – that’s probably why I had a non-standard behavioral interview. I didn’t get asked many questions such as “tell me about a time when you led a team/had a conflict/etc.” Instead, I got asked: 1. Many
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Published: March 13, 2016
Dartmouth / Tuck Interview Report: Round 1 / Second Year Student / On-campus
The following Dartmouth / Tuck interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 1 Applicant who was admitted. Congratulations to them! Hello! Long time viewer, first time I get a chance to contribute. I interviewed in Hanover, NH in the first round, and believe it or not, I got in! With that said, it was a great opportunity to see the campus and meet with students. I interviewed with a second year on-campus. I guess they do this if the Adcom is booked, busy, or interviewing other candidates. I was nervous about this, because I thought an Adcom member would have more
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Published: March 13, 2016
MIT Sloan Interview Report: Round 2 / Adcom / On-Campus
The following MIT Sloan interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant. Good luck to them! The interview was very conversational – we jumped around a lot talking about my past experiences and my plans at school inside and outside of the classroom. While I was telling stories, I would often get stopped and asked a very probing question about how I reacted/felt about a certain thing. The interviewer had mentioned that they had just viewed the optional submission (I included a 1-minute video). I was asked first about the interview essay. We talked about this for
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Published: March 13, 2016
NYU / Stern MBA Interview Report: Round 3 / Adcom / Off-campus Hub
The following NYU / Stern MBA interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 3 applicant who was admitted. R3 Applicant…Invited to interview on Feb 18th. Interviewed at Mumbai off campus today. It was a very friendly interview with an Adcom member, also a part-time MBA student at Stern. Interview was not blind. Questions: – How does your day look like in your office? – What is your proudest moment at work? – Failure at work – A time you had to resolve a conflict at work with a team member/client –
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Dartmouth / Tuck Interview Report: Round 3 / Second-year Student / On-campus
The following Dartmouth / Tuck interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 3 Applicant. Good luck to them! There were many people on my interview day in either a morning or afternoon interview time slot. The morning was spent chatting with other candidates and taking a tour, as well as sitting in on a class. The interview itself was with a second-year and very laid back and straight forward. I had plenty of time to ask my own questions and I did not feel rushed at all. I was asked about my background and why I wanted to apply to Tuck,
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Dartmouth / Tuck Interview Report: Early Action / Second-Year Student / Skype
The following Dartmouth / Tuck interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by an Early Action Round Applicant who was admitted. Congratulations to them! I opted to take a chance and not interview on campus. I received an email that I was selected for a interview (since Tuck doesn’t grant everyone an interview if you don’t go in-person). I couldn’t make it to campus prior to the deadline, so I was able to schedule it via Skype. It was scheduled to be a 30 minute Skype Interview. I prepped using previous Clear Admit Interview Reports, and that worked perfectly.
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UPenn / Wharton Interview Report: Round 2 / Second-year Student / On-campus
The following UPenn / Wharton interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant. Good luck to them! Did the team based discussion on 2/23 on campus. There were about 20 people interviewing in my time slot that day. We all chatted prior to the interview but didn’t know who would be in which group. 35-minute team based discussion started with 1 min for everyone in the group to go around and say their idea. My group had 6 people in it – 3 women, 3 men. Everyone had their pitch memorized, with some much more detailed/specific than others. My
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Indian School of Business Interview Report: Cycle 2 / Panel / Off-Campus
The following Indian School of Business interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Cycle 2 applicant. Good luck to them! Three member panel…consisting of one member from their ad-com, one alumnus and one alumna. The interview lasted 35 minutes and was conducted at the ITC Hotel in Mumbai. The panel had access to my application. The alumna asked most of the questions and smiled during the interview. The alumnus did most of the interrupting/probing and frowned throughout the interview. 1) Why MBA? 2) Take me through your career progression and mention key highlights 3) What
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Harvard Business School Interview Report: Round 2 / Adcom / On-Campus
The following Harvard Business School interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant. Good luck to them! My interview followed the typical HBS format (2 interviewers: both members of the AdCom, one had read my application and one had only seen my CV; the interview lasted 30 minutes)- and I was asked very conventional questions: 1) Why did you transition from science to investing 2) Explain what your company does in plain language 3) What are your strengths/weaknesses 4) What do you do in your free time 5) Why do you
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Cornell / Johnson MBA Interview Report: Round 3 / Adcom / On-Campus
The following Cornell / Johnson MBA interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 3 applicant. Good luck to them! Interviewed with an associate director of admissions. The interview was conversational in nature, and semi-blind. The interviewer had not read my application but, of course others had, and gave her questions to ask. The interviewer ran through basic interview questions such as: • Why an MBA now? • Tell me about yourself • What is a weakness of yours? • Why Johnson? How can Johnson help you achieve your goals? • What co you consider your
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Oxford / Saïd MBA Interview Report: Round 3 / Adcom / On-campus
The following Oxford / Saïd MBA interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 3 applicant who was admitted. Congratulations to them! I interviewed on-campus at Oxford Saïd with ~30 other candidates who had traveled to Oxford from all over the world. Interviews lasted 30 mins – spread throughout the day – and were all with ad-com. The ad-com I interviewed with had read my entire application, and referred to it on her laptop while we were talking. Her questions were pretty straight forward: • Why an MBA now? • Tell me about what you’ve learned
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HEC Paris MBA Interview Report: Rolling Admissions / Alumni / Off-campus
The following HEC Paris MBA interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 3 applicant who was admitted. Congratulations to them! HEC Paris requires 2 separate interviews with Alumni, both of which I did in San Francisco. Their format is that they require interviewees to give a 10 minute presentation, followed by a 30-45 minute chat about their background/qualifications. The interviewees are sent your application beforehand to review. My first interview went rather well. We met in a bustling cafe and upon arrival she asked me if I’d prefer to do the presentation first, or to chat first. I
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Cambridge / Judge MBA Interview Report: Round 3 / Faculty member / On-campus
The following Cambridge / Judge MBA interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 3 applicant who was admitted. Congratulations to them! There’s not a lot of information online about Cambridge Judge interviews so I wanted to help out other applicants. Cambridge Judge offered 2 on-campus interview days, and I decided to travel to Cambridge personally to visit the campus and meet current students. Turns out, most of us had traveled from all over the world to come to Cambridge. Cambridge provided me (and 14 other interviewees) a free night’s accommodation at Westminster College for the night before, and hosted interviewees and our partners
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Notre Dame / Mendoza MBA Interview Report: Round 2 / Adcom / Skype
The following Notre Dame / Mendoza MBA interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant. Good luck to them! The Notre Dame interview was fairly straight forward. It was not mentioned whether the Adcom interviewing me had reviewed my entire application or only my resume. She started out asking the basic questions, beginning with “Why do you want an MBA?” and “What strengths would you bring to the program?” This took a considerable amount of time given the more casual nature of the interview, as I expanded on those questions to cover my work history. Since Mendoza is trying
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Michigan / Ross MBA Interview Report: Round 2 / Alumni / Off-Campus
The following Michigan / Ross MBA interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant. Good luck to them! Met the alumni at an Au Bon Pain in Manhattan. She was very pleasant to talk to and the mood of the interview was relaxed. It lasted around 30 minutes with me asking questions for another 15. We went through the following questions: 1. Walk me through your résumé. 2. Tell me about a time when you had a conflict and how you resolved it. 3. How does an MBA fit into your career goals and why
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UPenn / Wharton Interview Report: Round 2 / Adcom / Off-campus
The following UPenn / Wharton interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant. Good luck to them! I interviewed in the San Francisco office so we were evaluated by an EMBA ad-com. There really wasn’t much a nervous energy since three of us out of the five candidates in the room had met beforehand and practiced a mock session. The ad-com wasn’t especially strict and no timer was provided so we kept track using a clock on the wall. We gave our one-minute introductions (none of us elected to talk about our background/undergrad school) on the topic and then
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Published: February 28, 2016
Michigan / Ross MBA Interview Report: Round 1 / Second-year Student / On-Campus
The following Michigan / Ross MBA interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 1 applicant. Good luck to them! The interview was in 2 parts. First was the one-on-one interview with a second year student who I found to very pleasant. She took me to a small conference room (in a line of a bunch of other applicants doing the same) and told me she was going to take notes during the interview. She asked me the standard questions – my résumé, my goals, why Ross. She posed a few hypothetical questions that all focused on teamwork and effective group work.
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Published: February 28, 2016
CMU / Tepper Interview Report: Round 2 / Adcom / Skype
The following CMU / Tepper interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant. Good luck to them! Interview was held on Skype. The interview was blind. She had only seen my résumé. Lasted 34 minutes with questions. Go through your résumé Why an MBA why now? What are your post MBA goals? Plan B? You’ve worked in multiple industries. How do you go about making decision to move from one to the next, what resources to you use in making your decisions and those moves? A story of teamwork where you had to compromise for the team to
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Published: February 28, 2016
Michigan / Ross MBA Interview Report: Round 2 / Second-year Student / On-Campus
The following Michigan / Ross MBA interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant. Good luck to them! The interview was blind, interviewer only had my résumé. List of interview questions: Walk through résumé Why Ross? Short-term/long term goals? What would you like to be involved in if admitted? Who have you been in contact with at Ross (this is not a direct question, but a follow up question when I mentioned I had been talking to some current students)? 3 things on your bucket list (other I spoke to also got a “random question” similar to this)? Questions for
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Published: February 27, 2016
Duke / Fuqua Interview Report: Round 1 / Second-year Student / Skype
The following Duke / Fuqua interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 1 applicant who was admitted. Congratulations to them! My interview was with a 2nd year student on 13th Nov’15 at 9am EST on Skype. It was a blind interview and he mentioned that he had only my résumé and nothing else. He started by asking me the local time at my place (which was 7:30pm) and then he noticed that I was in the office. So he said that he would try to make it quick so that I can go home! He started informally with “How
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Published: February 26, 2016
Yale SOM Interview Report: Round 2 / Adcom / On-Campus
The following Yale SOM interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant. Good luck to them! Extremely well-organized/planned full day event on a “super interview day” with ~60 interviewees. Everyone (both Yale people and applicants) was super nice, intelligent, interesting, ambitious and for the most part approachable (definitely few suave MBA types as well but mostly down to earth and approachable). The collaborative atmosphere definitely stands out. I have a non-traditional background, and perhaps that’s why I was interviewed by none other than the director of admissions herself. Most people are interviewed by 2nd year students. It
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Published: February 26, 2016
U. Maryland / Smith MBA Interview Report: Round 2 / Adcom / On-Campus
The following U. Maryland / Smith MBA interview report was submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 applicant who was admitted. Congratulations to them! I interviewed early January and have since been accepted and awarded 61K in scholarship but thought better late than never in providing feedback. Students were on winter break and for that reason I did not get to get meet with students and in retrospect would like to have interviewed once semester had started up. I interviewed with Adcom. She had read my entire application. We bonded over Brazil my home country and one of her favorite destinations. The
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