As you are preparing for the Wharton team based discussions you may be wondering how much time you should spend rehearsing your one-minute conference idea presentation. After all, this is a chance for you to speak in front of fellow interviewees and admissions members. With so may eyes on you, it is probably important to perfect your pitch, right? Not exactly.
One of the main ideas of the TBD is to see how you collaborate and interact with other people. Everyone acts slightly different in a team setting and these nuanced differences are important to the admissions committee. Are you someone who is confident? bold? cocky? shy? inquisitive? challenging? The iteration of the conversation is much more important than how it begins. While your idea should make sense, should not copy an existing conference and should be interesting to the Wharton community, it is absolutely not necessary to have a great in order to ace the interview.
As you practice for the TBD gather a team together and see how you respond to ideas from new people you are not familiar with. Whether you encourage the quiet person to participate or whether you build off of a strong point another interviewee made, your group interactions will be most important. The TBD should be fun (as fun as an interview can be).
If you are interested in signing up for a mock Wharton TBD, send me an email as I am running a few of them this week:
scott@personalmbacoach.com. As a Wharton grad, I will not only prep you for the TBD but talk with you about what parts of Wharton are best suited for your profile and provide talking points.
https://www.personalmbacoach.com/#!interview-prep/c1wgoGood luck!
Best,
Scott