Ivey Business School MBA Program Guide 2026

The interview was conducted by a member of career management team- a senior career coach- Kate Barne... Read More

The interview was conducted by a member of career management team- a senior career coach- Kate Barnes. The interview was more conversational than I thought it would be and it went on for around 52 mins. There were some 10-12 questions asked: 1. Tell me something yourself 2. What are your short term and long term goals 3. What have you visualised about your long term goals and how will Ivey MBA help you in achieving your short and long term goals. 4. A conflict with colleague: how did you deal with it 5. Anything that people misunderstand about you- a follow up question to it 6. Any example of innovation/ idea you suggested in a team 7. Can you name 2-3 firms that you’d like to join for your short term goals 8. Any recent case study that you think can be discussed in class 9. Time when you faced a setback, how did you deal with it 1-2 more questions were asked And few minutes were given to ask questions to the interviewer at the end (I asked 2 questions) Date of interview: 11.11.24 Date of acceptance: 28.11.24 Read Less

I got interviewed with Mark Vandenburg from Ivey Business School. He is part of the Ivey's Career Ma... Read More

I got interviewed with Mark Vandenburg from Ivey Business School. He is part of the Ivey's Career Management team. The interview was very conversational and he made me feel really comfortable since the beginning. Took off with 1) Tell me about yourself? 2) Why MBA? Why now? Why Ivey ? 3) How did you end up in Consulting even though you have an engineering background. What made you to leave Engineering? 4) What did you most enjoy about working in Consulting 5) Were you an agent of change in any scenario ? What did you do & what was the impact ? 6) What problems did you face when leading a team ? What are your learnings ? 7) What are your strengths & weaknesses ? 8) How did you handle cross-functional projects as at times people have other competing priorities. How do you align them to prioritise your work ? 9) The strengths I mentioned was Analytical Mindset, Innovation & Helping others. So, the follow up question : Walk me through your mindset/process when working on an innovative project. How do you come up with innovative ideas ? It was a 60-minute interview, and he gave me 15 minutes to ask him questions. I had a list of about 3-4 questions. You should be ready with 3-5 good questions relevant to your profile. Read Less

Before I talk about what I learned from my interview, I’d like to say that it’s important to kee... Read More

Before I talk about what I learned from my interview, I’d like to say that it’s important to keep the tone of the interview conversational. This is something I learned from many failed interviews. Be ready with stories from your work life. Took off with 1) Tell me about yourself? 2) Why MBA? Why MBA in Canada? 3) Why Ivey? 4) Tell me about a project where you helped your team to success. What did you learn from doing it? Is there anything you wish you could have changed? 5) Can you tell me about another project in which you led a team to success in a cross-collaboration setting? 6) Tell me about a time when you made a team fail. 7) Since you want to be a consultant, tell me about a recent event in Canada that would make a good case study. 8) Tell me about your start-up project experience? Did you learn anything important? 9) What will you do for Ivey both in and out of the classroom? 10) What steps will you take to make sure you do well in the program? Then, in a 60-minute interview, he gave me close to 20 minutes to ask him questions. I had a list of about five questions that I asked. You should be ready with five or six questions to ask the interviewer. Try to have at least two layers of answers - for counter question-and two examples for each of the above questions. Read Less

Had an interview with one of the Career services members. It was very conversational and standard MB... Read More

Had an interview with one of the Career services members. It was very conversational and standard MBA interview. Lasted approx 50 min. 1- Tell me about yourself 2- Why MBA? Why Ivey? 3- Leadership opportunities? 4- Any initiative and what was the impact? 5- Conflict within the team 6- Ever worked in a dysfunctional team? How did you ease the experience? 7- Experience with a bad manager 8- Tell me about one strength and one weakness 9- What kind of a leader you want to be after MBA? Couple of more behavioral questions and then I asked the interviewer 3-4 questions. Prepare well on the leadership stories looking back upon your experience and do think of couple of questions to ask the interviewer. Read Less

Duration of interview - 50mins Very conversational interview with Robyn from the careers team 1. T... Read More

Duration of interview - 50mins Very conversational interview with Robyn from the careers team 1. Tell me about yourself 2. Why MBA, Why Ivey 3. Short term and Long term goals. Follow up question on alternate career path 4. Incident where you did something innovative or were a catalyst of change. How did you get others on board 5. Recent news/incidence which can be a good topic for a case 6. Quality that people misjudge about you. How did you feel when you got to know about it? What did you do to address it? 7. Situation when there was conflict in the team 8. Questions for me Read Less

Interview Date-2/5/22 Admit offer- 11/5/22 Duration of interview- 61mins 1.Tell me about yourself ... Read More

Interview Date-2/5/22 Admit offer- 11/5/22 Duration of interview- 61mins 1.Tell me about yourself 2. Why MBA , WHY now , WHY IVEY 3. CFT team example 4. Failure & its learning 5.Motivation behind Personal & Professional paths 6.Quality that people misjudge about you 7.Examples of work ethics/performance under pressure 8.Decision making on limited Data 9.Challenges in my professional life - follow up questions 10.What is leadership according to you 11.questions for me (I asked 5 questions) Read Less

Application submitted: 8th April 2022 Interviewed on: 18th April 2022 Accepted on: 27th April 2022 ... Read More

Application submitted: 8th April 2022 Interviewed on: 18th April 2022 Accepted on: 27th April 2022 My interview lasted 60 minutes and mainly consisted of questions from the debriefs posted here. It was extremely conversational. I did not follow very rigid structures (like STAR or CAR) and wasn't perfect while answering behavioural questions, but I still got in! So it's super important to be honest about who you are and not try to hide your weaknesses. These are some of the questions I was asked: 1. Tell me something about yourself/tell me your story. 2. Tell me about a project you worked on with a team. Follow-up questions here on the challenges I faced during this project. 3. Why MBA? 3. Why Ivey? 4. Tell me about a setback you faced. Follow-up questions on what happened after the setback and how I handled it. 5. Question on handling conflict in a team. Again a follow-up question on what's happening now? What is the team dynamic like in the present. 6. What is one thing/quality that people misunderstand about you? 7. What are your strengths and weaknesses from the POV of a supervisor. 8. Tell me about a time you had to make a decision without having access to complete information. How did you later adapt as you had more data? 9. Do you have any questions for me. Biggest advice: Be yourself, and try to build a connection with the interviewer. Good luck! Read Less

Very conversational interview with Robyn from the careers team. Typical "walk me through your resume... Read More

Very conversational interview with Robyn from the careers team. Typical "walk me through your resume" question, and of course, why Ivey/why MBA. Like you would expect from any school. A couple of behavioural questions too which aimed to test things such as self-awareness and ability to create change. I think these are pretty linked to success in the case method of learning because you need to be able to be open to other perspectives, and make your case/support your viewpoints. Ahead of time, I would recommend applicants to do the following: 1. Understand the case method and if possible, participate in a class. If not possible, there are some examples of Harvard business school case classes on youtube. 2. Understand why you want to do an MBA and why at Ivey - what are Ivey's differentiators? Ivey uses career coaches to conduct the admissions interview, because they want to only accept those that they believe can: a) successfully find employment post-MBA b) have experience that is strong enough to provide good insights into the case discussions, but also not require an internship. Therefore, being very cognisant of your current skill set, the skill set needed where you want to go, and how an MBA can fill those gaps, would be key. Overall, I have been extremely impressed by the professionalism and touchpoints from the school throughout. I hope this debrief helps some prospective applicants! Read Less

Hi all , Interviewed with Prateek Malhotra, he first made me comfortable asking about my family and... Read More

Hi all , Interviewed with Prateek Malhotra, he first made me comfortable asking about my family and the Covid situation and then he started by telling me about his details and journey and then asked me about myself. He made me really comfortable. The interview went about for 80 mins; the scheduled time was 60 mins. The interview was very conversational. - He asked me about myself and then asked me the why MBA question. - He then followed it up with why Ivey question and then asked me, in addition to education, what really, I was looking to get out of from the MBA experience. After this he told me that the Behavioural questions would start : - The time when I did something Innovative, what was the Impact? He asked a follow up question to that to clarify a detail. - Then he asked me about a conflict situation and my learnings out of it , what I learnt from that? - He asked me about a time when something did not go as per plan, or you had a major roadblock in our project, asked a follow-up about my learnings. - Tell me a time when I was given feedback, what did I do and how I handled it? That was it, it was very conversational, I had a great time. Then I got the opportunity to ask him questions and that lasted about 20 mins. Overall a very pleasant experience. Read Less

I had my interview with Brenda Pearson, a member of Ivey's Career Management team. I was a bit worri... Read More

I had my interview with Brenda Pearson, a member of Ivey's Career Management team. I was a bit worried at first because I've never met her, but she was truly lovely and made me feel at ease throughout the interview. Having talked with the alums/current students, listening to the podcast Julia shared, and going through the questions here were definitely helpful! As most have already mentioned, it was very conversational and tailor-fit to my experience (e.g. she asked how the selection and evaluation process was for my first job as a Management Trainee). Here are just some that I remember: 1. Walk me through your resume 2. Why an MBA and why now? 3. Why do you want to work in that industry? 4. What specific companies have you looked into, particularly in Canada? 5. What do you know about Canada? What sources do you follow? 6. Do you have any hesitations about the Ivey MBA? 7. Tell me about a time you had a conflict at work? How did you handle it? 8. Tell me about a time that you had plans and it didn't pan out? What did you do and what could you have done differently? 9. Is there anything you were hoping I would ask and prepared an answer for? 10. Do you have any questions for me? That's it! I thought I was prepared for the post-MBA employment goals questions, but I still thought my answers could have been better. I suggest to research more on this. Read Less