consultantcat wrote:
Hey all,
I had my stanford interview yesterday. The alumni was very friendly and joked around a lot, and we instantly established good rapport (probably a function of his nationality as well as being the Stanford type). It was scheduled to last an hour but I think it was longer than that.
He came in with a bound document from Stanford that was maybe around 20 pages, and he said we could begin by finding the more interesting questions. He explained that afterwards, within 48 hours, he had to write a report on the interview back to stanford. Then if I got in he would be the one to call me.
There were questions per category, as you would expect. We skipped "why mba, why stanford, etc." He asked me about a situation where I showed initiative, led a team, influenced a group of people, etc. He took copious notes as I spoke.
He said he really liked my answers and made some jokes about bosses, difficult colleagues, etc. He then jokingly said we should find more difficult questions since I was answering them all so well, and asked me about the most challenging work situation I'd been in and what I did; since I appeared to be the overachieving type, when had I run into serious obstacles in my life; and what was my proudest moment. Basically we were having a jovial conversation throughout.
He then said I could ask him questions, and we talked about his career expectations when going into business school and whether they had changed, if he'd have been able to pursue the same career (he is a CFO now) without an mba, how he'd leveraged his alumni network afterwards, and what he took as most valuable from the stanford program. We also talked about why he'd chosen stanford and what he thought was the best value added from going there vs elsewhere. For each answer he would give me an example to illustrate, which was a nice touch.
I felt it went really well, although there was one question where I rambled for a moment and he had to gude me back. Overall I left feeling good about the experience. He said he was sure we'd be in touch again, which gave me confidence.
Hope this helps, and good luck to everyone!
Thanks a lot for sharing your experience.