London Business School LBS 2013 - Calling all MBA Applicants

I second what Kohsamed is saying

Posted from my mobile device

Tossed my hat in

Posted from my mobile device

Pretty much summarizes my interview with an Alum recently. I am one of the more seasoned applicants with 5+ years of experience and extensive international background. I had looked up the his linked in profile, and he had cumulative work exp of about 9~10 years of work experience, so I kind of expected the interviewer to be more seasoned/mature.

The interviewer continued to refer to me as "you finance people" time and time again, although I reminded the interviewer that there are a variety of different types "finance" jobs, and honestly I would expect someone who has an MBA or has even worked in business to be able to differentiate. There was no Walk through of my Resume or any questions about my background or experiences.

Then asked why LBS and what challenges do I perceive - and so I was like well its a well rounded school, and you meet people from all over and I look forward to working in that scenario etc etc. to which she concluded LBS IS A FINANCE SCHOOL.

SINCE WHEN IS LBS A FINANCE SCHOOL!?!??! LSE sure.. LBS? LBS sends its people all over, which is why I liked it so much. Then the interviewer went on to say well 1/3rd of the class goes to finance... YES TRUE but the other 1/3rd goes to consulting, and 1/5th goes to FMCG, given that it is a school in the financial HUB of EU ofcourse it is finance heavy, but I wouldn't call it a Finance school like how NYU or Booth is a finance school.

The presentation question was really very general, if you are aware geneally of what happens, you will be able to comment. In this too she chose a topic related to his field. Clearly it was important for the person to feel like he is smarter than "us finance people" or something. I also answered the question directly, but as you can already guess by now, the person "DISAGREED".

The whole thing was awkward, with awkward pauses

I doubt I am going to hear back from LBS at this point. I am just surprised, because EVERYONE I have met so far, from AdCom, to Current Students to Alum, to recent admits, to other people who have been invited to interview, they have all been so smart, fun and simply amazing!!

Apologies for the rant. This is no way to discourage others from applying to this wonderful school.This whole process gave me no additional insight into the school, what a waste of $280 . I hope everyone else has better luck with this process.

Does anybody have any experience requesting LBS to provide a decision earlier than the published date? I need to take a decision about INSEAD sooner than later and was wondering if there is anyway to know about my LBS status early.

Hello Azn84,

I am really sorry to hear this - I had a completely different experience.

Before the presentation, my interviewer told me that he was explicitly asked by the Admission Committee not to disagree with the applicant, even if he has opposing views about the selected topic. The goal of the presentation is to test whether the applicant is able to communicate his or her ideas in a structured and efficient way. Given this - in my opinion - arguing with the applicant during the presentation is not fair at all. (The interviewers are also told that the applicants are not expected to have deep/factual knowledge about the selected subject.)

Given that application to business school is a huge investment, if you think that your interviewer did not follow the AdCom's directions, you may consider notifying your official contact person about your case.

Andy

Sorry mate, I know it is hard to digest that your all hard work and preparation goes for a toss just due to some 'limited knowledge' interviewer.

It is beyond my simple logic, why the schools fails to understand that the interviewers are representing the schools? It is a huge responsibility to represent a very reputed school. You are NOT automatically eligible for that huge responsibility just because you are "FREE" on that day and time.

If you can not assure consistency, fair practice, don't talk loudly about "holistic selection process"!!

If the school really want to address the issue, many people like me will will willing to share "what went wrong" and "what can be done to address those" very constructively!! I offered this to the dean of one school and that fellow shied away!!

Hi Andy,

No one is saying that all interviewers are bad!!! In fact I had 5 interviews and 4 were very excellent, insightful, matured and covered a very wide areas in reasonable depth.

What we are saying is, there are bad apples, rotten apples and probably oranges!! Schools need to be very careful in selecting their interviewers so that they can maintain a fair standard and give equal opportunity to every candidate.

I have reason to believe that some schools takes interviews very seriously and assign only matured, experienced and open people. And I have reason to believe that some schools takes very ad-hoc approach and assign the first available "FREE" person.

At one side, we talk about standardised GMAT score and on other side we randomly interview some one .... understood the issue?

Winamp I'm in the same situation, I'm under pressure to not let INSEAD go, factoring the cost angle. I'm wondering whether I can ask INSEAD for a one week extension on the payment deadline, but it might jeopardize things.

Ann, the more I read this the more I'm a bit disillusioned against LBS. I've now interviewed at Kellogg, Duke, INSEAD, Ross, and I have LBS on Tuesday. I've flown to Mexico for this interview and the interviewer has not responded to many requests to fix the time despite my telling him I don't have a functional cellphone and can't coordinate properly after arrival. Out of all the alumni I've reached out to (I contacted ~5 /school), I found LBS alumni to be the least responsive. It's a great school, but its alum simply don't seem to be the most helpful bunch.
I realize my experience is not based on a representative sample, but the above comments on interviewer choice seem to reflect a trend.

Sorry to hear about the negative experiences... I think I had my best interview with LBS. It took a while to schedule, but then again LBS interviews are lengthy and I understand it's not easy taking 2 hours out of your day. My interviewer actually apologized for how awkward it is to give a presentation as part of the interview, although honestly i thought it was pretty easy and he had purposely picked a topic that is very relevant to what i currently do. I liked that the interview didn't focus on behavioral questions (tell me about a time you failed, etc). It was overall very conversational and he offered a lot of insight on the school and the process. He also mentioned that LBS is known as a finance school, although he said it is strong across the board (my goals are non-finance related).

I'm thinking whether the dates were chosen intentionally far from each other, at least by one school of these two...

If you look back to the previous round's deadline date, it appears that people who are accepted receive phone calls a day or two before the deadline. Not sure that helps matters, but I would check those posts to get a better idea of timing.

I have also recently had my interview. And apart the story with the presentation, I can confirm the impression. I felt awkward during the interview and my interviewer was constantly correcting me / pointing out some stereotypes. I console myself with a thought that by far not all alumni are good interviewers and it should not have any impact on the evaluation. Further, what struck me is that my interviewer did not take any notes. So, I believe it will be just a yes or no at the end.

My impression after the school visit as well as consultation with my current colleagues who are LBS alumni left much better impression. Therefore, I do not dismiss my chances to get in.

I just wanted to share my interview experience as well. It sounds like a lot of people have had negative or awkward experiences with their interviewers and for those who are still waiting to interview, I thought I would share a positive experience. I thought my interviewer was really well matched for me and my background, she was incredibly nice and the whole meeting was very fluid and conversational. She set up the structure in the beginning, 40min for her to ask me questions and discuss why I'm interested in LBS/MBA, then the presentation, and finally some time for me to ask questions about her experience. It lasted 1.5hours and she took copious notes, which makes sense, because I think they have to fill out an evaluation of some kind. It was definitely positive overall.

Just thought I would share something positive to maybe make people who haven't interviewed yet feel a little better... Good luck all!!!

I wanted to share my very positive experiences too:

LBS was my best interview (out of 12: 3 not "blind", 9 "blind", including 8 30-minute long "informational" 1-2-1 interviews at MBA events). It lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes.

What I liked:
- very welcoming and positive atmosphere of the interview
- the interviewer knew my application very well and interviewed me as a person and not just like a 760-GMAT applicant
- case-study-art questions
- questions and tips around study group work
- tips how I can organize my studies and life during MBA (have a bit special situation, not a typical one for MBA)
- that he really took time for the interview
- information about student clubs (tailored to what I wrote in my essays)
- sincerity of the interviewer

And there was not a single point that I did not like. I can only wish that everybody gets such an interviewer!

I had my interview yesterday in Mexico City. It started off with the interviewer not having printed my CV, and I mentioned the email said I did not need to bring one. His response was "who doesn't bring a CV for an interview? Everybody does". Then he took half an hour to go print it (this was at his office). I apologized and felt stupid, I had debated bringing it several times.

Any how, his second statement to me was this: "I don't like consulting" (I'm with McKinsey), and he went on to elaborate while checking his iPhone "All the McKinsey people in LBS were.. you know.. missing something..". I wasn't phased by this as I was expecting something similar, I agreed with him about some points but underlined how much one can learn in this role. Interview was about 1hr 20 minutes.

He stayed on my resume for a good 40 minutes, and asked me about my prior experiences to McKinsey a lot (very few have done that till now, and never to this extent). Really wanted to know why I made so many industry switches, what was I thinking, was it random etc. Then the usual:
- One interesting question: Do you want to make the Dean;s list? I told him "no", he looked surprised. I guess he was expecting a typical McKinsey Type A "I'm going to rule the world because the logic in my his justified and therefore you must follow it too" approach. I told him why, that I wanted to do well but I would like to participate in clubs, socialize, and enjoy my final degree in London. He reacted with a "I'm really happy to hear that, that makes total sense".
- The case study was at the end, and he picked a banking question for me (so I had little background, but it was related to the HSBC meltdown and ethical considerations), He said he would give me 5 minutes, but gave me about 2/3 minutes and requested I start off. I took a moralistic stand (fine/penalize banks to set a precedent to prevent other banks from illegal activities), and he was smirking 30 seconds into my answer but didn't say anything (he's a banker).
- What role will you play in the study group? He wasn't satisfied with my answer ,said that's what every body hopes to do (guide the discussion, mediate), and then gave me advice on how to deal with it when I'm there (good news?)
- Why LBS? Again, he asked me this twice. Didn;t like my first answer (even though I gave additional reasons not mentioned in my essays). He really wanted me to be blunt, I told him I had got INSEAD. He wanted to know why LBS over the others.

Then he switched to Spanish to test my Spanish briefly, and seemed pleased as he complimented my accent as being Mexican (I have a Mexican teacher here in Costa Rica).

He was giving me advice on what courses to take in LBS, I don't know if he was just messing with me! At the end, he curtly wished me good luck after the case study and saw me out. Who knows..

Congrats on the (hopefully) double admit. Which one will you choose?