Calling all Said-Oxford Applicants (2015 Intake) Class of 2016

Congrats dude....... Let us know how the interview goes. Should you need anything (debrief or otherwise), I would be glad to help out!

Good luck to all the Stage 2 Interview invitees..... May the force be with you!

So, did you get the interview invite?

FROM Oxford Admissions Blog: And thus with a whirlwind ride and a swishing ending

Pablo Picasso said ” The purpose of art is to wash the daily dust of our lives ” but it is a particularly tedious challenge for those with heavy business dust settling in deep crevices of their being , thanks …

Interview debrief:

Seriously, am I the first one to get interviewed here?

I just had my Skype interview with a senior AdCom lady. She made me quite comfortable, but then she was pretty 'senior' so it was overall quite formal.
The questions were pretty general and behavioral in nature, nothing as such that caught me off guard.
Why MBA
Why Said
Why Oxford
Post MBA goals,
Questions about my work and responsibilities
An instance where I had to take an unpopular decision
Which all b-schools have I applied to
About my current organization. She knew about my company so a small conversation on that. She also asked if my employers are aware of my decision to pursue MBA and how are they taking it.
She ended with asking me if I had any questions for her.

Overall the interview lasted for exact 30 minutes, barring a minor glitch with Skype calling for a minute or two.
However, throughout the interview I had the feeling that she was probably wondering why do I feel the need to do 1 yr MBA, given that I have only 3 years of experience. Not sure if she thought I was still too young or that I could benefit from a two year program more. I did my best to defend my decision of pursuing 1 yr program

All the best to the rest. My only suggestion to you is to be consistent with your answers. Because they will take down notes, every thing you mention will be documented. So they will validate in the end, is my best guess. For example she asked me how my company is taking to my decision to apply for MBA. I mean why else would she ask this unless she wanted to cross check if it was my manager indeed who wrote my recommendation.
And it's not really a blind interview. For instance, she happened to mention one thing from my application that I realize wasn't mentioned in my resume. They for sure do get a chance to go through your complete application (at least my interviewer must have).

I always wonder what are the good questions to ask, especially, if you already researched everything about the school.

Many thanks for the debrief!

oh beats me,every single time. I go completely blank and wonder what's the correct question to ask. I asked her some random question about the culture at Oxford and then immediately went "duh, she'd find this stupid" in my head.

The only stupid question is the one not asked. I am sure you did alright. Good luck and all the best!!!!!!

Thanks! I am getting a nasty feeling about this, but I hope it's otherwise! All the best for your interview.

It's good to finally see a second interview debrief on this forum!

You don't have to worry about verification, that happens after you have paid the deposit fee.

Good luck, and if you do get admitted let me know, maybe we can meet up!

Guys got an interview call ..its scheduled on 25th..has anyone already been through the interviews if so any headsup on the questions would be really appreciated

Please go through previous posts you will find lot of links for this year and past years interview debrief

Posted from my mobile device

I had my interview in round 6 last admissions cycle, was admitted but had to defer a year. Last year's thread was extremely helpful in my interview prep, so I thought I should pay it forward.

This is an unstructured account of how my interview went (as far as I remember, please don't take this as gospel):

Medium: Skype

Interviewer: an associate fellow of the business school. During the interview I deduced he had read my entire application (by deduced I mean he said "I see in your application you have...")
Interview duration: half an hour
Time difference: half a world away
Mental state: riding high on flu medication
Neck state: rather constrained by a business shirt collar that had magically tightened since it was last worn about six months ago

First topic of conversation: "hello? can you hear me?" "hello? are you there?" "hello?" "you're there?" "hi! hello?". Continue for a couple of minutes.

Second topic: "I see you're from New Zealand, I was there a couple a years ago for the Rugby World Cup myself" - this drifts in to a conversation about how both the Welsh and Kiwis love to see England lose at rugby. At this point I'm hoping that the interview ends here, because I feel like I've nailed it so far.

First serious question: Why the MBA. [should be in your essays]

Second serious question: Why Oxford [i'm sure you've got your own answers here as well]

Third serious question: Have you applied to any other places [no/yes]

Fourth serious question: what's your plans for after the MBA? [should be in your essays also]

Fifth serious question: tell me about a time at work where you failed [I had written in my essays about how I had failed approx two straight years of undergraduate study and was prepared to answer about that - but I wasn't prepared to talk about failure outside of that! Had to quickly think of an example, which was less of a "here's how I goofed up" and more of a "here's the problem, I made a mistake initially but then fixed it later."]

There's something here but I've completely forgotten it

Final question from the interviewer: do you have any questions for me? [a couple of days before my interview I had read a current student's blog about changes to the MBA programme structure that went in to effect for the 2014 intake. At that stage they weren't revealed yet so I asked about that. I suggest preparing your own question since this one is now outdated.]


Tips for applying: Said offer a profile assessment. Please use it. Said also offers to put you in touch with alumni so you can have a chat. Please do this too. You get a lot of insight in to what life is like during the MBA. Also, make sure you get a bunch of people to read your essays, especially people who are sticklers for grammar and spelling. I lost count of the number of times I had typed two 'and's and forgotten a 'the' etc.

OK that's all I have to say for now. Hope to see you all in September 2015.

thank you for the rich information. Did you tell him about the other schools you applied for? I heard somewhere that if you got in Cambridge show it to Oxford and then they will accept you, and vice versa, if you got into Oxford show it Cambridge and they will accept you!!! is that true?

While the Oxford application asks you to list what schools you are also considering applying for, it does not necessarily mean that you are compelled to submit applications for those schools you've listed.

I have not heard about this Oxford <-> Cambridge thing. Maybe, maybe not - I do not know how admissions at either school make their decisions. I wouldn't count on it...

FROM Oxford Admissions Blog: So a politician, a banker, and a consultant walk into a bar…

…a reflection on the 2014 Strategic Consulting Project Written by: Andrew Kerr, Wizit SCP Team So a politician, a banker, and a consultant walk into a bar… Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but actually it’s an …

Done with my interview yesterday. The questions mostly were an extension on what i had written in my essays. Read your essays well before you give the interview. Have a clear idea of what you will give and what you want to get from the oxford community.

All the very best to all of you!!