The Super Saturday event started with an hour-long registration – 30-minute interviews were scheduled throughout the afternoon and each interviewee was assigned a slot. After registration, the dean welcomed the interviewees and answered any question that interviewees wanted to ask for about an hour – he spoke about himself and why he started as dean, current events at the school, and the future direction of Ross. The dean was extremely conversational and informal in his speech, making everyone feel welcome and comfortable (or as much as one can be waiting for an interview.)
Besides the interview, there were multiple 1-hour events scheduled throughout the day which students could join depending on their interview time – a career services workshop (the office of career development talked about careers and how students search for internships/jobs), a tour of the current building (extremely impressive and LEED certified), and a panel of current students covering a wide range of interests, i.e. Net Impact, Tauber / Operations, Erb, dual majors, a married person, an international student, etc. After the panel, there was a 2-hour long reception (with food but alas no alcohol) where the dean, admissions, and current students mingled with the interviewees who were much relieved to finally be done with the stress of an interview.
It was a blind interview – the 2nd year MBA student who was my interviewer had my resume in front of her and was taking notes on my resume.
Questions:
- Tell me about yourself
- Why MBA
- Why Ross
- What do you do outside of work?
- Team example: a team member not on par
- Tell me about a situation when you had to think outside of the box
- Tell me about a time that you failed and what you learned
- What is your greatest accomplishment to date
- What is your approach to teams?
- Tell me your key strengths and one weakness
- What was the last book you read?
- Questions for me (as the interviewer)?
The questions she asked seemed to be less standard, i.e. what was the last book you read?, but all in all, the questions were pretty standard. I also heard that others got asked if you could be any superhero, who would you be and why?
The interviewer was a 2nd year student and wanted the interview to be more of an informal conversation. Although I was conversational, I still made sure that I got my main points and examples across. She was extremely friendly and was definitely passionate about Ross and the collaborative, down-to-earth culture. The interview seemed less like an interview and more like a conversation to get to know me and my fit for Ross.
Ross definitely knew how to make us feel welcomed and comfortable throughout the day which speaks to their nature. If anyone was the least bit impressed by Ross and its value proposition, he/she would most likely be blown away after this full-day event. The most impressive part for me was the dean talking to us for an hour and then taking part in the reception to meet interviewees. For me, Ross was already one of my top schools so this experience will probably make it that much more difficult to choose where I go – fingers crossed on actually getting the admit!
