My initial campus visit and meetings with admissions staff and students were excellent. Very cordial and collegial environment.
Interview Day: 1:00 PM Interview. Arrived at Sage Hall at 12:30, reported to Admissions Staff and let them know that I will be relaxing in the Atrium. Checked back in at 1:00 PM was told that interviewer was at lunch and I would be picked up from the Atrium. 1:15 PM saw interviewer and several other admissions staff stroll into the Atrium with brown bags. 1:45 PM they are still having lunch. 2:15 PM Everyone finishes lunch and walks away, I am still waiting to be interviewed. 2:30 PM Admissions Staff escorts me to interviewer’s office. I was kind of ticked off with this tardiness/lack of professionalism. I expected to be informed if the interview was delayed. I had to refocus and compose myself real fast.
The interview questions were pretty straightforward. It almost looked like the interviewer had a standard list of questions – posted on this site by previous interviewers. Here are the questions I was asked:
- Why do you want an MBA? Why not Law or MPP/MPA ?
- Why Cornell?
- What are your long-term and short-term goals?
- What other schools are you applying to? What are the similarities and differences of those schools compared to Cornell?
- Did you ever have a team situation where someone was hard to deal with?
- What will you add to Johnson?
- How do you see yourself fitting in at Johnson?
- How do you handle conflicts?
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- How would your co-workers describe you?
- What are three characteristics that make a great leader? Give examples of your leadership experience.
- How do your plan to pursue your post-MBA job search? (based on my essay and resume)
- Questions about Johnson?
I asked a few questions about Ithaca, opportunities for partners to work/study at Cornell.
Thanks to previous posters I was able to handle all questions without much surprises. The second part of question 4 made me think a bit, but my response seem to have resonated well.
Except for the delay on interview day I was very happy with the Johnson environment.
