Calling all Wharton 2011 Applicants

Hmm... no tie then. This time is just a visit, I really wanted to catch their Social Impact club presentation. Unfortunately I can't stay for their Social Impact Conference on Friday, but c'est la vie. Interview is in a week or so.

I am curious about the accuracy of this information and what it is really based on, other than someones opinions.

I don't know if Sandy's post is one huge billboard for Wharton invitees to take his service. Can his claims be substantiated?

An Open Letter to Wharton Adcom--PUBLISH THE QUESTIONS. or start over
The new Wharton interview process--where each applicant gets asked one of two mandatory questions in 3 diff. catagories--which I outlined in post above has been confirmed by reports fr. kids who been thru the process and by convos w. Wharton alums. I for one dont think much of this process, but hey, it's your school, you can run your dog and pony show anyway you want.

I also got emails from students who HAVE found out about the exact questions fr. various sources, including, one imagines alum interviewer friends. As the interview process proceeds, these exact questions will leak out more and more. I know the questions, and lemme say, they are a CONSULTANTS DREAM. I could help anyone formulate a grade 4 answer which will conform to your grading protocols, which have also been released in various ways.

For instance: A time you had to address a conflict of two or more teammates--

any consultant, well, this consultant, could help craft a script along the lines of "Yes, I was on a team on the x project at ACME a port. company which makes insulun monitoring devices and the team was Joe, a veteran engineer fr. the client, and Lucy, an Asian compliance officer fr. a co-investor, and Jim, a salesman fr the client, and there were several conflicts based on both function, communication style, different agendas, and team dymanics, as well as my own sense of what was ethical. My role as the rep. fr. the PE firm, was blahblah and Jim wanted to get to a price pt. where he could beat out our low cost competitors, but Lucy said we could not meet govt standards, while Joe said his engineering team was demoralized because of cut backs. I tried several ways to manage these disputes, including asking Joe 1 2 3 and getting Lucy involved w. our own lawyers about possible flexibility on the compliance issue. Over the next two weeks, I did and said 1 2 3 and each player said back a b c --the outcome was what I call a 80 pct success, and it included 1 2 3 but we missed a better compromise b.c. I failed to notice Lucy was reluctant to give push back and that Jim was bucking for a promotion. blah, blah, blah

IT WOULD BE THE EASIEST THING IN THE WORLD FOR A CANDIDATE TO GO INTO THE INTERVIEW W. THAT SCRIPT INTERNALIZED (AND SIMILAR SCRIPTS FOR ALL FIVE QUESTIONS) AND WHILE SURE, SOME KIDS ARE BETTER AT THIS THAN OTHERS, THE CONSULTANT PREPPED CANDIDATE WLD HAVE A HUGE ADVANTAGE OVER SOME POOR SCHMUCK WHO GETS THIS QUESTION COLD. and cert. a huge advantage over himself, if he had gotten that Q cold, so what exactly are you learning.

The fact you did not anticipate this happening is .............well, you tell me.

But whatever, IT HAS HAPPENED, THE QUESTIONS ARE OUT THERE AND BEING PASSED AROUND, AND THEY ARE MAKING YOUR WHOLE ORIGINAL DUMB IDEA NOT ONLY DUMB BUT UNFAIR.

Get past me, I love your school, I'm prepared to like you, THIS IS JUST AN AMAZING BONER, and you really need to fix it.

PUBLISH THE QUESTIONS AND LET EVERYONE PREPARE..................OR STOP THE INSANITY OF THE PROCESS/KLUGE YOU HAVE SET UP.

This is not like HBS where 1000 questions are out there, and you can kinda prepare, and the questions are not behavioral, so it dont make that much of a diff. You have given birth to a flawed, unfair, and easily gamed process.

full disclosure: I dont do Wharton interview prep but anyone w. those questions could open a quick land-office business.

HEY NEIL DIAMOND--YOU HAVE SEEN MY FACE, AND ARE YOU NOW A BELIEVER????????????
I DONT DO WHARTON INTERVIEW PREP.

I wonder if this leakage of question will make adcom view hub interviews (if they don't follow guidelines) vs. alumni differently.

Hey Sandy, on behalf of the silent majority that really appreciates your info, and understands that your style is personality driven, not a sales gimmick, thank you for always giving it to us straight. This process would be a lot easier with more transparency from the adcom and it really does help to have your intel. Keep up the great work.

PS you should spend more time here on GMAT club, it's a more liquid market these days than bweek.

Posted from my mobile device

Well, you seem like a reasonable chap, given the facts as they have now developed, what level of drama do you think apporpriate. I am sorry you are stressed, I myself viewed the Wharton interview prep materials and become outraged, at its stupidity, its attempt at phony metrics, its endless powerpoint jack-assery (many alums have given up watching it). Sooooooooo, given how amazingly dense and messianic I sense the folks who created that abortion are, I decided some humor and precision and hi-amp original posting was called for.

Lemmee give a shout out here to the Wharton Dean (something of a revolving door gig itself):
HEY DEAN, DEE LEOPOLD AT HBS OR ANY EXPERIENCED AND PROFESSIONAL ADCOM HEAD WOULD PROBABLY NOT HAVE CREATED THIS MONSTER. I DOUBLE DARE YOU TO SIT THROUGH THAT 45 SLIDE POWER POINT KLUGE, AND SAY, 'WOW, THAT IS A GREAT MESSAGE TO DELIVER TO OUR ALUMS WHO ARE GIVING INTERVIEWS FOR US'
be thankful this is inside adcom baseballl --that slide show, had it been done by a pol or fed agency, is a Daily Show natural.

thanks--

Since everybody is saying that everybody supposedly knows, why don't you share with the masses and tell us what those 8 questions are then?

because then the adcom will say, "ho-hummm, so the gmatclub kids and Sandy followers had an amazing advantage, but who cares, we ducked a bullet and can shut up and go back to junketeering around the world. So what if our process is bent and dumb. It's not like Wharton is paying us enuf to care."

what I want to have happen is have activist wise guys like you bombard adcom w. complaints saying NO FAIR, NO FAIR on their own blog, and see what they do when faced w., many pitchfork applicants who are being SCREWED and COMPLAINING. So what you suckers who do not know the questions should do, is start complaining.

that my pal, is called the democratic process.

what is in it for me, proof of what I have always said,
admissions consultants help keep the adcoms honest, that is ONE SERVICE they perform. And I have said that years and years ago, see my interview w. HARBUS, the HBS school newspaper, many, many years ago and pay attention to stuff in red :

https://hbsguru.com/media_harbus.html



sooo, if you are outraged about how unfair this is, start posting on Wharton applicant blog--dont worry, they will hear you. What they may do, of course, is just add dozens more questions, which will just make the whole outcome even more arbitrary--and if you read their whole spiel, destroy the very purpose of doing this in first place, which was to have alums grade ONLY THE 6 QUESTIONS AGAINST A GRADING SHEET SO EVERYONE IS EQUAL AND NO PERSONALITY OR HUMANITY SNEAKS IN. OR say that they will, given their assinine reliance on metrics, they have invented an algo which can control of answers which have been prepared by consultants. etc. etc. The W adcom has gone metric mad--and the adcom slide show to alums is just PROOF of that.

Any chance we can get access to those slides? (i.e., do you have a copy of that ppt?) That'll give us gmatclubbers an edge, precisely what we all need to motivate a change to their system.

I don't think that would be fair. I think the fact that people are sharing a pre-determined list of questions is a lot. Remember Scoretop or whatever the name of that GMAT site was. Also notice that neither ClearAdmit nor Accepted have reports about the Wharton interviews this season.

Sandy - I am having an Asia hub interview - I presume this will likely not follow the same guidelines you mentioned - i.e. these guidelines is only for alumni interviews?

Thank you!




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AS TO WHARTON, ADCOMS ARE DOING THE SAME BEHAVIORAL JIVE, IN SPADES. AND SO PROB. ARE KIDDIE INTERVIEWERS IN PHILLY

Interesting... So what happens to all your Wharton kids who received invites? Are you going to disown them???

I believe wharton should come out and address this. Even if it were to be that knowing the questions is not going to help the applicant or if they are going to add additional questions to tidy up the process, there will be a lot of concerned applicants. I don't think it has been raised in the s2s forums as of yet. If it becomes out in the open no point ignoring the elephant in the room.

As an applicant in R2, it will be interesting for me to see how this interview process will pane out to be when my turn (hopefully) comes.

ha ha--nope, just send them some email tips about how to conduct oneself in behavioral interviews. Generic stuff, but very useful.