I participated in the Round 2 Super Saturday (March 8th). About 100 applicants were at the Haas campus for the day long event, which included lunch with students, student and career panels, a tour, and the interview.
My interview was conducted by a first-year student. It was blind – he only had the resume I submitted with my application. The adcom folks on hand that day even specifically mentioned that re-using stories from the application was perfectly acceptable, since the interviewer will have not seen the application.
I received a pretty standard set of interview questions:
- Resume walkthrough
- Why MBA / Haas
- Why MBA when I already studied business in undergrad
- 3 strengths, 3 weaknesses
- Challenging interaction with a team member
- If we were in a project group for a class together next spring, how would I contribute?
- Where do I see myself in five years?
- Joining a startup or creating my own? (as a result of answer to above)
- How do you get team members to “break free” of specific silos of responsibility?
- 30 second elevator pitch
All in all, I think it was a pretty good interview. Most of the questions were fairly standard and since this was my fourth interview, they were questions I’d been pretty prepared for. The few unique questions weren’t that far out of left field, so it wasn’t hard to come up with a logical answer that fit in well with everything else I was saying. What I found most interesting was that Haas seems to pair applicants with students of similar backgrounds/interests (this thought was also validated with other applicants I talked to that day). I think this lends to a more tailored, applicant-specific interview. I am interested in high-tech, and my interviewer had the same interests, and that shaped a lot of the discussion as we went along (i.e. the ‘silo’ question above was a result of a discussion on working with engineers). I was impressed with how probing the interview was. The interviewer wasn’t just rattling off a list of questions, but tailoring his discussion and asking small follow-ups based on my responses. He wasn’t being a jerk, just getting specific with things he thought were worth discussing. The elevator pitch question was the most surprising – but after spending the last 6 months on essays and interview prep, I had my story down pretty well, so it was a fairly easy question to get through (I think I even took less than 30 seconds).
After 30 minutes of his questions, we spent 15 on my own, and I feel he opened up a little more during this time (i.e. took off his interviewer hat and put on his student hat). I used this section to ask questions related to things I feel I didn’t get a chance to appropriately mention during the interview (desire to start working with startups while in school, international experiences, what ‘path’ he is taking within the school based on our similar interests, etc). He seemed to be really receptive to these questions and honest and eager with his answers (he even used bulls*** a couple times).
All in all, the Super Saturday experience was a good one. Being from the east coast, I hadn’t had a chance to visit the school and really understand it beyond the online stuff and conversations I’d had with the one current student I know. The events, including the interview, are meant to give a feel for fit with the school, and they certainly made a good impression on me.
