Wharton 2013 - Calling All Applicants

I am so happy to see Wharton has this new format, its innovation in itself. It also differentiates itself from other schools like Harvard and Stanford.

I feel like this slightly throws me out of my comfort zone. I mean, I was mentally prepared for one-on-one interviews with my colleges. Now we're going to be scrapping for footage time in a room full of ultra smart people. I think its going to be interesting but excruciatingly nerve wracking.

Group dynamics my friend. Plus, it's a classic tactic of interrogation or inquisition. It's always the silent ones that are dangerous!

I wonder if you can really call the Group Interview an 'innovation'. Business schools in India have done it for decades, and they stopped doing it probably because they realised that it was not the best way to evaluate candidates. Most such "Group Interviews" will end up being chaotic, with each participant trying to beat the other on verbal real-estate. Wharton is trying to do something different, but I really wonder if they did the 'Research' (as they mention in their essay question) before deciding to deploy an evaluation tool that has all been abandoned by universities that used it in the past.

Consulting companies throw job applicants into these team-based discussions to weed out the unassertive folks.

I wonder how Wharton is going to organise these team-based discussions for international applicants based in cities with very few or almost no applicants. Perhaps we're expected to fly to the nearest country where there is a larger pool of applicants. Has anybody asked Wharton Admissions about this?

The email listed the cities they would have interviews in (London, Mumbai, SF, etc). I'm guessing if you don't live near one of those cities, you would have to fly to whichever is closest to you. Similarly for US applicants, we'll have to travel to either SF or Philly regardless of where we live -- though a campus visit is not necessarily a bad thing to make time for.

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Thanks, mba2014hopeful. Does it include any of the Australian cities or Singapore by any chance? If not, do you mind sharing which cities in the Pacific and South East Asia regions are listed in the email?

This is what was listed:

The off-campus interviews will be held in Dubai, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, New Delhi, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, and Tokyo.

Alright, this is loser talk. You my friend are a member of GMATClub. You scored highly on your GMAT. You are applying yousrelf to one of the top busines schools in the world. From this I can tell you are a bright driven individual. If you are getting an interview at Wharton, you will be one of those ultra smart people in that room. You are clearly on par with the best of the best. If you cant muster up the self confidence and courage to get in there and make a few points during the discussion, then you don't deserve Wharton. Its not about scrapping for time, I am very reserved in these situations, but I will go in with a game plan. I know I wont dominate the conversation, but I will try to get a few key points in and build off others in the room.

Come on, we got this.

Thanks, sid05. That corresponds to what Adam Markus has on his blog:
https://adam-markus.blogspot.com.au/2012 ... n-mba.html

For the international applicants that have been invited to an interview, can anybody share with me the dates for the sessions in Singapore? Much appreciated.

Invites won't go out until Oct 23 to Nov 9. Hang tight until then.

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Throwing out an idea here. Would anyone be interested in setting up an anonymous google hangout-style chat where we can practice the group discussions? I'm sure no matter how the practice sessions go, we'll be a bit more prepared for the cluster-f when the real interview happens.

PM me if you're interested

Very cool idea! Let us know if this works out.

I am afraid you have confused innovation with invention. Wharton has innovated. They will use an existing technique which was not in use at Wharton all along and adopt it for their own good. A clear differentiator from rest of the top tier schools.

Anyways I think Group discussion will not be the main metric this year as it is the first year of use.The weightage of the GD should be similar to that given to candidate's IR score. Wharton will evaluate the GD this year and then consider to use it more regularly depending on the outcome.

The Innovation group will probably end up looking at the data and proposing whether the GD styled interview works. Another point here is that the Wharton GD differs significantly from those in IIMs. This I gathered from the examples provided for the candidate's preparation. From the examples, its clear that Wharton's topics are general affairs rather than current affairs, which gets tested in IIMs.

Anybody have any idea what Wharton is looking for in the hobbies or related activities section of the app? It seems like "hobbies" suggests things like, I enjoy cooking and skiing in my free time, but I don't belong to any club or organization or hold a title with respect to these activities, and there is no start/stop date. I'm debating whether to include these types of hobbies (eg, "Cooking" is my "club" and I have been doing it from xx/2004 to present and spend about 3 hrs per week doing it) or just leave this section blank. Also thinking about adding very old club involvements, like I was on a ski team in high school, in order to indicate that I have been involved in this activity for a long time, but on the other hand maybe it is just stale and unimportant at this point. Thoughts?

Well, I would leave out the ski thing. You hit the nail on the head when you wrote the word "Stale"... If you haven't done it since high school, it's likely not all that relevant. As for the cooking, that can be great, but we need to know that it's more than three hours of you just slapping some tomatoes in the pan to put on your spaghetti! You need to find some concrete way to make it relevant and interesting (like, you have taken courses in three types of cuisine, you know how to make Peking Duck, you test two new recipes a week, etc.... Make it UNIQUE and INTERESTING!

Seems sensible. I do put a lot more into cooking that just basic sustenance (know you were just making a point ) -- I like to challenge myself and cook new and exciting dishes when I can (unfortunately, work and other commitments (MBA apps) don't afford me time to test 2 new recipes a week, but when I do get time I might spend a whole day in the kitchen), love classic French the best -- but, still, how do you work this into the Wharton hobbies section? They give you four entries to fill in: Club/organization, Positions held, Start date/end date, and # hrs per week. There is no room for explanation, other than 250 characters for all your hobbies combined to explain which activity you enjoy the most and why. Is it bad to just leave the hobbies/interests section blank entirely and depend only on the more formal ECs listed in the activities section? I would like to show some of my other interests outside of work to highlight a multifaceted personality, beyond what I will be writing in one of my essays (which conveys just one of my personal passions), but seems like this is the only place to do so (no room on my resume, and even if I did have room I frankly think it a little amateurish to list hobbies on a professional resume). Might just end up scrapping the whole section, though.