Our archive of over 2,000 MBA admissions interview questions includes self-reported accounts from applicants. Please use the dropdown menu to view filter reports by school.
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Harvard MBA Admissions Interview Questions: On campus / Adcom / R2 waitlist / Admitted!
I was very well prepared for the questions on this site and in the interview guide. I also did three mock interviews with a Clear Admit consultant. While this preparation was limited in its helpfulness to the actual questions I received, it did give me the utmost of confidence which is the key! The female adcom member, who was joined by another woman who was “in training to conduct interviews,” focused her questions on a leadership experience and my career vision that I presented in the application. Here’s an outline of the questions: An opening question about my experience at
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INSEAD MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Interview 1 / Alumni / India
My first INSEAD interview was conducted today. My interviewer of was an old pass-out of INSEAD and current was the Managing Director of a Private Equity firm in India. I called her a day before the interview and she suggested that we meet the following day at her office. As usual, I left home late and reached her office on the exact time. INSEAD did not have her updated contacts so it actually had taken me a good amount of time to get in touch with her to set up the meeting. Anyways, here is a sample list of questions
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Published: April 30, 2008
London Business School MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 3 / Off-campus / Alum
Interview Date: 29 April Round 3 Interview Location: Weekday at his company’s offices Interviewer: Industry (Telecomms) Me: Military & Consulting, solid GMAT My interview lasted just about two hours. The first hour was the main interview question portion. After explaining how the interview would work, that he couldn’t provide me feedback, that there would be a short presentation, etc. we got started. Questions included: Why London Business School? Because of my background, what do I hope to get from the programme? (This was an essay question, and I think he wanted to sense-check based on my experience, which is fairly
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Published: April 30, 2008
Berkeley / Haas MBA Interview Report: Round 3 / Off-Campus / Alumni
I contacted the interviewer via e-mail and he got back to me very quickly. He was out of town for the next 3 weeks but checked with Haas to make sure that interviewing so late (April 18) would be ok. They said fine, and we scheduled. I met him at his office. I think Haas tries to pair people up with similar professional backgrounds, as we both had experience working in the government sector. Interviewer was friendly but professional, but became more chatty as the interview went on. It was a total of 1 hour on the dot. These were
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Published: April 29, 2008
Harvard MBA Admissions Interview Questions: On campus / Adcom / R2 / Admitted!
The best advice I can give is to read through this site and prepare mock answers for most of the questions that appear. During the actual interview, the most important thing is to sound conversational. Overall, the questions I was asked tended to be more general than specific to my application. Some of the one’s I remember are below: What is your opinion on the HBS application process? Tell me about your leadership style. What would your subordinates say about your leadership style? What can you contribute to HBS? What is the biggest academic challenge you might face at HBS?
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Published: April 27, 2008
INSEAD MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / January 2009 Intake / Alumni / Off-campus
My interviewer was dressed very casually, and having come from work, I was more in business attire. I provided a print out of my one page resume so that the interviewer could easily see my career progression at a glance and allow him to visualize any specific questions. We started with the typical “tell me about yourself” and I gave a quick 5-10 minute intro on my career and relocations throughout it. A big theme of the interview was what exposure I had to culture shock in my personal and professional travels, I guess to see how I would be
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Published: April 27, 2008
UCLA / Anderson MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 3 / Alumnus
I interviewed with an Alumnus for 30 mins.He was a recent grad and had no interviewing experience. Since my interview was blind, he was wondering why he did not get my resume beforehand. The interview was fairly straightforward with no curveballs. Anyway, here are the questions: Give me a 30 second overview of your resume. Why MBA, Why Anderson? What was your biggest setback in life? What was your greatest achievement in your profession? Tell me about your extracurricular activities, then some follow up questions on my extracurriculars. He asked me to explain one of the achievements I had mentioned
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Published: April 27, 2008
UCLA / Anderson MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 3 / Adcom / On-campus
Had my interview yesterday on campus with Jessica Luchenta. Fairly standard format – it was conversational but not too relaxed. The usual suspects – “Why MBA, why now, why Anderson, teamwork example, challenge you overcame, how has that shaped you, clubs you’d participate in, what would you do for fun etc. outside classwork…” and one that threw me for a minute, “Tell me about a disappointment in your life.” She seemed to relate to what I was saying, at least a bit, and clearly appreciated that I had flown out from NY for the interview. She also noted the students
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Published: April 16, 2008
INSEAD MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / January 2009 Intake / Alumni / Off-campus
I am a Round 1 applicant for the January ’09 class at INSEAD and I had one of my interviews yesterday (15-April). I found out that there were not too many alumni in my area, so my interviewer actually conducts interviews fairly frequently. We had 60 minutes, so we cut to the chase pretty quickly with a “tell me about yourself” kind of introduction, specifically asking about when I graduated University (to get an idea of my age, perhaps). I had sent my interviewer a copy of my whole INSEAD application, so he commented that he actually had read about
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Published: April 14, 2008
UVA / Darden MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / On-campus / Adcom / Admitted & Matriculating!
Darden’s interview is meant for you to succeed. With an invite only format, the adcom stresses that they like what they have seen and the interview is nothing, but a conversation. They have one question, tell me about yourself. You’ll likely be able to talk straight for 10-15 minutes before they interject with questions. They may push, but in my opinion, they’re trying to see if you’ll crack. The course is case study after all. If you don’t feel yourself getting your point across, take a deep breath and try and approach it from a different angle. Also, relate what
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Published: April 14, 2008
Stanford GSB MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / Alumni Interview / Admitted!
The interviewer was very friendly and relaxed and made sure to mention to me at the beginning that the interview was more about getting to know each other and learn about the alumni’s experience Stanford, than it was to judge the merits of this applicant. I had emailed him a copy of my resume, and when I arrived at his office he printed it out. He began with a brief introduction of his background, and then said he wanted to ask a few questions and then have me ask him a few questions. What have you enjoyed about working at
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Published: April 14, 2008
Berkeley / Haas MBA Interview Report: Round 1 / Off-campus / Alum / Admitted!
I interviewed with a recent alum. I got the impression that most of the applicants in my area interviewed during Haas’ ‘Super Saturday’ event on campus, but I happened to complete mine after that date at an off-campus location. I had visited Haas twice prior to the interview and had a good feel for the school’s curriculum and culture going into the interview. I can’t stress enough how important that was during the interview. Being able to reference particular academic programs, majors, professors, etc. gave my responses to the interviewer’s questions much more depth. I didn’t get the typical ‘walk
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MIT / Sloan MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / Adcom Consultant / On-Campus
My interviewer was very warm and friendly and made a concerted effort to make sure I was relaxed and comfortable. She had clearly read my application thoroughly and after some small talk, she told me she had prepared 3 questions that I should answer with new stories in the STAR format. Tell me about a time you led a team to a solution. Tell me about a time you had to sell an idea. Tell me about a time your idea was rejected. She then allowed me to ask several questions about the program. We ran a little over 45
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Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / On-campus / Second-year Student
We went through my resume in chronological order, starting with my decision to attend school and the majors I chose in college. There was more focus on my current role. They also asked about a leadership example and a time I had to work through inter personal conflict. I was asked “Why an MBA?” I asked him if he meant “Why an MBA, or why a Yale MBA?” and his answer was, “First tell me why an MBA, then we’ll get to why Yale” The interview lasted 40 minutes, and it went by very fast. My only advice is to
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Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / Hub / Adcom
I was a R2 applicant who went for an Asian hub interview The interview was held in a local hotel with an admissions director. She was quite nice and approachable, asking a lot of questions on my background and career development to understand how I got to where I am currently. The usual questions such as Why MBA, Why Yale, How you can contribute to the community etc were made. After about 25 minutes, she whipped out a printed sheet with my name and application ID pre-printed on it. There were three questions – I was taken by surprise as
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Cornell / Johnson MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 3 / Adcom / On-campus
Tell me about your class visit and experience on-campus so far Link together the different parts of your resume for me (including goals) Why MBA? What other schools are you applying to? What makes you nervous about business school? How do you deal with failure? Give an example. Describe a difficult team-based situation What is your greatest achievement? How will you contribute to Cornell? Where would you like to work after MBA? What do you do in your free time?
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NYU / Stern MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / On-campus / Adcom / Accepted
I was interviewed on campus on March 17 by an AdCom. She was really easygoing and after some general small talk she went in on the usual questions- Why an MBA? Why Stern? How will you contribute to Stern? Tell me about a time you were on a team? Tell me about your achievements? Where do you want to work the first summer? What type of companies do you see yourself working for? Most of the questions were team oriented…they really focused on how I worked in teams and the results of those situations. The most interesting question was to
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Published: March 31, 2008
UCLA / Anderson MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / On-campus / Adcom / Admitted!
I am a R2 admit to UCLA Anderson, as of 28 March. I interviewed on-campus for Anderson back on 14 February with Jessica Luchenta, an Associate Director of MBA Admissions, and a 1st-year student that was sitting in to learn about giving interviews, as Jessica said this student was going to be assisting Admissions next year with interview prospective students. The email notifying me of my interview said to bring my resume…I brought three copies with me, and was able to provide the 1st-year a copy (I think this went over well when I offered a copy to the 1st
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Published: March 29, 2008
Wharton MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / Alumni / Admitted!
Equally as important as preparing for the interview is choosing your interviewer. I chose a more seasoned alumni who worked in an industry very different from me, because I wanted to meet with someone who would have a very different perspective and who had been out of school long enough to offer a longer term view on the value of a Wharton degree. As a result, I was able to formulate questions that were really relevant to my interests, and we ended up having a very rich dialogue (almost 2 hours). Questions of particular note: Why Wharton, why now? In
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Published: March 27, 2008
Stanford GSB MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Alumni
After a series of rescheduling due to busy schedule of alumnus and myself, I was able to schedule an interview at the office of alumni interviewer. To my surprise he and his assistant were the only two people working in the office that day. As usual the interviewer was very laid back and friendly. He asked me to wait almost 15-20 min till he did some office work and took out print out of my resume and Stanford Interview FAQs. Started with his brief introduction and then the regular questions. Walk me through you resume?(Lots of follow up question in
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Published: March 26, 2008
INSEAD MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / September 08 Intake / Alumni / Off-campus
Interviewed in the US mid february with an alumni, a partner at a big consulting firm. It was hard to get a time set up with him, which foreshadowed pretty well the time crunch I experienced during the interview itself. The interview started late and he didn’t have much time to give me. It went like this: he ate (lunch), I spoke. He hadn’t read about me (I provided him my resume) so I essentially had to sell myself from scratch, telling him about my most recent work experiences and the things I did at my company, as well as
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Published: March 26, 2008
MIT / Sloan MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / Adcom
Of my interviews thus far, MIT was by far the most rigorous and thorough. They hold true to the “behavioral” interview model, where they spend most of the time asking you about a situation from your past where something happened and you need to say what you did. Note that they want stories that have NOT appeared in your essays. It sounded like they didn’t mind if the stories were from my personal or professional life (I asked) as long as they were relevant. The interview was conducted by a member of the admissions committee. It is exactly like a
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Published: March 24, 2008
Wharton MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / On-campus / Second-Year Student
Most of the questions I received were the same as outlined by others but two in particular were different: Questions: If you were the CEO of the company that you work for now what would you change? Anything you are concerned about in your application? I echo others who’ve said that Wharton was like a job interview. My interviewer was a second year student interested in entrepreneurship but more focused on getting through her checklist of questions.
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Published: March 22, 2008
London Business School MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2
It was a good interview that went over by about ten minutes and lasted for a full hour. There was no presentation and I think my experience was quite different from the other candidates. I was not asked any standard questions (why you/why LBS/why now/teamwork example etc.). They went straight into the essays and picked up on particular phrases (you’re an outsider in your own country, why) and went into DEPTH. They really liked my essay on who I would pick to eat dinner with because it showed who I really was – they want to see passion. They didn’t
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Published: March 22, 2008
Ross MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2 / Adcom / Off-campus
Originally shared by Life is so Beautiful After submitting my Ross application, I knew I had submitted my best essays so far, the essays which took more than eight weeks of my dedicated efforts! I knew,the admissions committee would like to hear me after reading them. As expected, the invite came in mid-February. So prepared for Ross I was that I scheduled the interview just after two days. Preparation Material: My application, Ross’ website, Accepted and Clear Admit Interview databases, Clear Admit School Guide – Ross, notes of discussions with Ross students and How to interview like
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