I did my interview this past Friday (mid november) at Wharton. I wanted to attend a class, but I was in such in a rush to sign up for the interview that I forgot that there are no classes on Friday. My interview wasn’t until 2:15pm, so I took the liberty of walking around the Penn campus. One of the Veterans Club representatives was generous to meet with me in short notice and helped ease my nerves a bit. He was impressive and extremely enthusiastic about the school. I would encourage anyone to talk to a few students before going into an interview.
Around 1:30pm, I went up to the admissions office, handed in my resume, and signed in the adcom computer terminal. There were about 6-7 other interviewees in the waiting area along with a couple of first year students answering various questions. Every 15-30 min, second year-students would come out in the waiting area and take interviewees in. I personally took advantage of this time to share information, stories, and jokes with many other applicants. It helped me relax and take the mind off the upcoming interview. Often, I couldn’t help but crack a smile when I saw a few applicants come out of the interview a bit shaken up.
At 2:15pm on the dot, my interviewer came in, introduced herself, and asked me to follow her into one of the interview rooms. She started off with “Shortly tell me what have you done since college”. Then, she asked the standard questions.
Why Wharton?
Why MBA?
Why did you make a switch from these job to that?
Then several follow-up questions – why this and that- but overall very pleasant conversation. I was very impressed with this particular second year. She was very intelligent, witty, and smiling when appropriate.
One question that caught me off guard was “What would you do if all of a sudden you had a free week”. Ironically, I had prepared for the 1 free day and 1 free month questions, but not this one. After taking more than a few seconds (10 sec maybe), I think I came up with a solid answer. If you are pursuing a non-traditional career post-grad, make sure to prepare for this question “What would hold you back from joining the herd into Investment Banking or Management Consulting”.
One advice I would share is to keep your answer short and to the point. Unlike alumni and maybe adcom interviewers, students generally adhere to the time limit, therefore you want to hit as many points as possible in about 25 min. It can be a challenge for some. Last, if you are mentioning books as a hobby make sure you can discuss about one. Overall, I felt I was well prepared since I had done a couple of mock interviews beforehand with other applicants in my area.
In conclusion, I got a very positive feeling about the interview and left Wharton with an undiminished desire to attend this great school.
