Calling UCLA Fall 2008 Applicants

Just finished my interview. I *think* it went well. My interviewer was an alum my age, very friendly but stoic guy (hard to tell if he's happy or not), in the Bay Area. The interview was VERY relaxed and conversational, but it did have one tough question (I'll list it below).

The alum first started by introducing himself and telling me about his background and career path. Then he asked me questions:

1. Tell me about your career progression

- during which, he asked a few simple questions to clarify and jotted down a lot of the stuff I said.

- I might have gone a bit long... probably 5-7 minutes, since I have a lot to cover.

1.5. Implied: What are your short and long term goals?

2. Why UCLA?

- I thought I blanked on this one, after talking about their entrepreneurship and international programs, along with their culture and class size. But upon coming home and looking at my list, I actually covered everything, just more succinctly than I thought I could do.

3. Since you're interested in entrepreneurship, where would you want to work for your internship?

- I told him about some established startups and roles I would do.

4. Since you're interested in the wireless industry, what are some companies you want to work for or products you want to make?

- I'm SO glad I studied up on wireless stuff the past few days. I had two ideas that I just thought up today (well, the ideas have been floating around my head for years, but I was only able to verbalize them today after reading up on all the news).

5. (Zinger) What do you believe that UCLA does NOT have compared to the other schools you are applying to? (he emphasized that I do NOT need to tell him what other schools I'm applying to)

- This was a HARD question, given the schools I'm applying to. I honestly believe UCLA probably provides the best practical learning experience out of all the top schools, with the numerous internships (during the year), their Applied Management Research 2 quarter program, and constant real world applications of what you learn in class. Thus, for me, it was very hard to give him a good answer.

- I wanted to say something about how the school should market themselves better. Because with what they have to offer, UCLA can easily become a top 10 school like Tuck, Ross, and Haas (outside of the M7). But I did not want to bring that up since it's a risky answer.

- I ended up talking about how UCLA and the LA region might not provide me as many tech startup opportunities as the Silicon Valley would. But it will provide me a more diverse range of industries to do startups in if I wanted to.

- I also told him a superficial answer (I even said that literally) about how I would have to move if I go to UCLA, but immediately followed it with, "but that's expected, as it's such a minor reason and I would easily move to go to Anderson."

6. In what ways will you improve upon Anderson as it is?

- Again, I wanted to say the admissions office marketing, but bit my lips on that one.

- I told him some clubs I would join how I would improve them.

Then I asked him 4 questions related to AMR, his experiences at Anderson, and his least favorite things. Also asked if he did an international exchange program, but he didn't.

Afterwards he told me that Anderson really values "Excellence without Attitude", and the adcom will reject anyone who has an attitude, even if they are very qualified.

He also mentioned that Anderson *might* release a few decisions before Xmas, but with the holidays coming up (shutting down next week), it probably won't happen.

We had a good chat walking out about random things, and that was it.

I guess I'll have to wait until January for any news then!

P.S. Oh yeah, one of the snafus was I ALMOST slipped and said, "Since Stan... um, I mean, Anderson, provides X and Y services..." I hope that didn't just kill my chances there.

I also found out I called one of Anderson's programs the name Haas calls their equivalent program in my essays. Good thing I didn't read it again until now!