Calling all McCombs(UT Austin) Applicants: (2018 Intake) Class of 2020

Same here! I received the same email- generic boring one put in such a lot of effort for my apps. Do not know what is driving away the adcoms from my application my employment gap is a big issue that I cannot save myself from.

Hey!!!! I just got an interview invite from Mccombs!!!!! :D :D
Super Excited about this one!!!!
This means there still is possibility guys! dont loose hope!! :D

Congratulations! I don’t mean to say I told you so...but I told you so.


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haha! you sure did mate ... thanks a ton

FuturePM91 , how about me? Should I be hopeful now?

Haha! Of course!!

Just finished my interview. I think it went well. If you just prepare by knowing your goals, your motivations behind those goals, why McCombs, and the details of you application you should do well. I had two behavioral questions and the rest just focused on what I listed above.


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I got an interview invite as well at midnight IST!..Quite excited!

Congratulations Rahul...and best of luck for the interview.


Looks like another wave of invites...

A query to my fellow applicants though-Is it better to interview with the adcom or with the alumni?..The Bangalore hub date left is 5th December (with admissions officer) while alumni interviews should be completed by 22nd Novemeber. Is there a disadvantage if I interview later in the cycle?

Any experience which you can share in this regard or feedback would be greatly appreciated:)

Regards
Rahul

Awesome...
Thank you for the review ...
Best of Luck for the results ...

Thanks a lot Mihir:)

By the time u receive any feedback from others, I would suggest that you check last years chats and reviews of people who were interviewed by adcom and alums...
My view is alum interviews are longer and more conversational (less orchestrated) ...thus giving you more time to express yourself ..

I interviewed with an alum and I can confirm that it was less orchestrated as described. I think an ad com would make me more nervous.


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Hi all,

I had my mccombs interview with an alumni earlier this week. Interview went well and got a very positive response to my thank you letter. Ultimately, I felt that interview sealed the deal, but of course, we’ll see!

Couple things I took away. If you interview with alumni, be aware the interviews be in a quiet room or very busy area. If distractions mess with your nerves don’t risk setting up an alumni interview. I interviewed at google campus at a bench with many people eating close by. It didn’t bother me, but I think some people would not prefer this situation.

On the flip side, my interviewer basically started out with “I’m supposed to ask you specific questions but we can get to those later. How are you doing??”. May have just been my interviewer, but I’ve heard similar stories about alums.

Also, with Texas interviews you can pick your alumni interviewer. Do research on their LinkedIn! If you draw blanks in the interview you can always ask a questions pertaining to their background.

Good luck!

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Thanks for the feedback.I did go through last years chats on this forum and found that most of them quite enjoyed their alumni interview experience.However,for Indians,I did not find too many alumni interviews.A lot of round 1 Indian applicants interviewed with the admissions officer and seem to have had a good experience too.

Had my interview with 2nd year student via skype. Overall great experience, very friendly approach and not stressful at all. Questions were not stressful either, and no unexpected questions at all.
30 min for the interview and 15 minutes for my questions. One interesting thing to note: the interviewer has the same career goals as i do. i am not sure this was the intention, since the goal of product manager in tech is very common these days, however i believe the school tries to match applicants with interviewers having similar goals whenever possible. our background with the interviewer was also similar in a way, because we both have entrepeneurship experience. So interviewer asked questions about my current business, and i believe he was just interested in this in the context of his personal background, not because the interview prescribed these kind of questions. This actually made the conversation much more interesting and meaningful.


For applicants, who are open to different options in terms of career goals and do not have them set in stone , i still suggest to have a very clear career plan down to position and company (or companies). although mccombs is not among the schools which are obsessed with super detailed career goals, do not relax just yet. even though my interviewer did not drill me hard on my career goals (maybe because he sensed that i really did my homework from some small details of the conversation), but i can see that coming from some students especially if they sense that you didn't do detailed research. so i suggest to over prepare by doing brief research on these questions (in the context of PM role of course, but you get the overall idea):
- why exactly this company?
- what is the product of this company that you would like to work on if given a choice?
- what new product would you suggest to the company's CEO if given the opportunity?
- what do you think about competitors x,y,z of this company?
- what excites you about the strategy of this company ?
- what skills are most important for this position in this company?
- what classes exactly do you want to take and how do they relate to this position?

the probability is not high due to limited interview time, but if these questions are asked and you don't have anything to say, that might really hurt i guess.

For those who received an Interview invite and who created a video essay, can you please confirm whether your video was viewed by someone from Texas? It's available on the demographic details under creator studio of YouTube.

What about those who didn't receive any invite?