Calling Urbana-Champaign Applicnts(2015 Intake)Class of 2017

Hi there.. my Interview is to be conducted by Mr. Ben Moreland as well... Can you please share the questions that were asked to you?

Hi,

I'm planning to apply before the January deadline. I was hoping if anyone could shed some light on how the college views applicants with little work experience. I graduated in 2013 and currently have 14 months of work ex (10 months as a decision scientist - Analytics and 6 months at a family owned business along with some experience at a start up since 2011. I will have 2 years of Full-Time post graduate experience by the time the program starts ( will this be taken into account by the adcoms?
Have decent GPA : 3.4. GMAT - 740.
Contemplating whether I stand any chance if I do my essays very well. The work ex thing is bothering me a lot.
Any thoughts?

Excellent question. You are a great candidate. In each class, there is always many students with ZERO [ yep, you read that right, ZERO...nil, 0, no, nada, vasina!] work experience. The two years you will have, the average work experience in each class. Please apply, your chance of getting in (with a merit scholarship!) very high (=95.999019%).

VoyagerII - Thanks, You've boosted my confidence to new heights. Will get in touch if I have more queries. Thanks again!

VoyagerII : As a current student, can you tell us what are the yearly expenses for an international student? (Housing, transportation, food, etc)

I did my interview on 5th November.
The interview was very interactive usual questions with Why Mba , Why now, Why UIUC and about my profile.
The interviewer told me that the decision will start coming out from 3rd December for the Early Action round.

Atb everyone....

Wow.. 5th November huh.. awesome!! I am having mine in 9 hours...

ATB for your interview, just remain confident and study your essays and resume perfectly before the interview!!

I am wondering if they are still sending out interview invites or is it too late to get one now? Considering results start coming out in 10 days time I guess they should be wrapping up the interviews now rather than sending out new invites.

Hi fbaig1,

To be honest, I have seen people do an interview even a day before the official due dates for admissions.

So be optimistic and hope for the best!!!

ATB, btw what is ur profile like?

My profile is GMAT - 710, Work ex - 3.5 years (all with IBM), GPA is on the lower scale (2.8/4) and decent extra curriculurs.

I was honestly expecting an interview invite from UIUC so I am wondering if they are going through this on the basis of time of submission as I submitted my app only a few hours before the deadline. So maybe my application is still not reviewed completely.

Let me answer in 2 points now:

1)Your GMAT score is great for UIUC, only thing I feel is the GPA. i believe u r from India, is it? If yes how did u get that 4 point GPA?
In any case, did u try explaining the low GPA score in your essays especially the optional one?

2) I submitted my application on 6th October after the dealine and then dropped an email to the Adcoms to consider me for Early deadline and they agreed. Why dont you drop such an email asking whether they are considering your app for Early Round or not. That should help.

Dnt hesitate to contribute to my Kudos if you like my replies

Well Ankush I did think the GPA would be a deterrent (it is usually) but I thought it would still be enough to get an interview invite. I guess you never know. ut yes I am from India and my GPA is actually on a scale of 10 (6.7/10) so that 2.8 was more or less an approximation.

As for the second point, I did submit the app before the early round deadline. Nevertheless I sent them a mail about 2 weeks back enquiring about my application status. Received the standard response that they were reviewing all the applications and the admission committe was yet to review mine. Considering the delay now there are only 2 possible explainations - either my application was not good enough or they still haven't reviewed it. Still hoping for the best though.

First of all, your conversion from 10 scale to 4 scale is not correct. So never post that you have 2.8 GPA.

Mention the 10 point scale GPA and let the school decide. I submitted mine on the scale of 100.

Second, I think as long as you wrote the Essays nicely, i dont see a single reason of you not getting an invite.

Hope for the best!

Thanks for that ankush. And no, I did not convert the GPA on a 4 scale when submitting to the schools. That's just for forums like these where most people convert it to a 4 scale for some reason. My bad.

Anywyas thanks for your advise. Hoping for the best.

By the way - noticed that you have admit from SMU Cox, Notre-Dame and TIppie. Congratulations for those!

I have an admit from TIppie and Notre-Dame as well but Notre-Dame is out of the equation because no scholarship. Tippie I am still undecided on. Which of those are you considering?

Thank you very much.

Lets not hijack this post with our discussion, so I think we can PM each other.

Just to highlight, ND I got 50% scholarship but my fiance college is not nearby so probably wont accept it. As of now SMU COX is the one I feel is really attractive given the scholarship amount, location and the program structure.

Had my interview on 24th.
Lasted 18 minutes.
Interviewer: Serena Hoff very laid back and informal.
She asked me the following questions:
Why MBA now?
Why Illinois MBA?
What are your leadership qualities?
Where do you see yourselves after doing the MBA?
Lastly, she asked me whether I'd join if offered a seat.
I asked a couple of questions.

Now sitting tight and hoping for the best!