I applied to Chicago Booth in Round 1, and was invited to interview on Oct 29, the first day that the school started releasing the invites. The school provided options for alumni interviews in various cities in India, and I chose to attend an alumnus interview in the city of Mumbai. The interview took place at the alumnus’ office in Mumbai on a weekday after office hours.
The interview was blind, and although I had submitted my resume a few days in advance, the interviewer had not read it, nor was he carrying a printed copy with him. I gave him the copy I was carrying, and he glanced over it and asked me to take him through it. The interview questions were pretty much as expected, all centered around why MBA, why now and why Chicago Booth. The interview took place for exactly 30 minutes, split equally between questions for me and from me.
What took me by surprise was the depth of the standard questions. The interviewer probed mercilessly about the why MBA and tried to gauge whether my expectations from Chicago Booth were realistic, and whether there was match between my reasons for why MBA and his opinion about whether the school could provide what I expected from the MBA. The good part about that was that he was extremely honest about the school’s strengths and weakness, and also was very sincere about understanding my expectations from an MBA.
From the interviewer’s comments, I figured that the school had its fair share of geeks, placed a huge focus on quantitative skills (hence the geeks probably), but was a good place for the more creative types as well. I was very impressed by the interviewer though, he was a very quick-thinker, and talked a lot of sense!
My recommendation to interviewees is to be thoroughly prepared for the why MBA, why Chicago Booth part. Also, since the entire discussion is centred around these questions, if there is anything you’d like the interviewer to know about your extra-curriculars, try to cover that when you are discussing your background, as you won’t get the opportunity to get those parts in otherwise.
All the best!
