I recently finished an interview for Round 1 at Stern. While the questions were fairly straight-forward (many are seen further down on this page), the overall interview was more challenging than others I had this year. This is because the adcom really does know/read your file before the interview, and comes prepared with specific questions about your career history. After a quick 30-second chit chat, we dove right into the questions.
Questions asked in my interview (but probably not in this exact order):
- How did you choose your undergraduate school/major? How did you use it to get your first job?
- Short/long term career goals. How do you plan on leveraging Stern’s strengths to achieve your goals?
- When is a time that you’ve worked well on a time?
- Describe a team when you’ve been on a team that didn’t work well together, and what did you do to try to fix things?
- During the first few weeks at Stern, how will you distinguish yourself from the other new students? How do you want to be known?
- In 40 years, you are asked to return to give the commencement speech at Stern. What will be your major accomplishments, and what advice would you give to the graduating Stern class?
- You are applying to several top schools. If accepted into all of them, how will you make your decision?
The adcom couldn’t have been friendlier or more interested in my responses. He/she truly wants to get to know you and judge whether you will be a good “fit” for the program. My advice is to know your strengths/weaknesses going into the interview, have a concrete idea of the clubs and classes you want to take, and just be yourself.
