Darden (UVA) Hub

Interviewed with Adcom Member. Interview lasted for 30 mins. Introduction Why MBA? Why Darden? Things you do for fun. Anything to add? Any questions for me?

1. Tell me about yourself 2. Why my undergrad institute 3. Was there a professor you built a relationship with that was advantageous to you? How did that go? 4. Tell me about a time you worked with someone radically different than you and what did you learn? 5. Tell me about a challenging situation you faced at work and what actions you took 6. Why MBA? 7. Why Darden 8. What is something you would like to tell us about that you weren't able to talk about during the interview

Applied with a GMAT waiver* 30 minutes. Adcom. - Run me through your resume - Why MBA - Why Darden - Spoke stuff about my interests and extracurriculars here - ST and LG goals - TMAT, you managed a conflict at the workplace - TMA your biggest professional achievement - TMAT, you led a diverse team. How was it different from others? - Any questions for me

Interview was taken by adcom director Haley Whitlock. The interview was very conversational and it went for 40mins. 1) Tell me about your childhood? Then we talked about the whole journey and she asked me lots of questions in that and she was very interested in my whole life journey. One behaviour question as well when I was talking about my work experience. 2) Why Mba and why Darden? 3) What is you long term and short team goals? 4) Apart from work what do you do and how do your spend your time outside work? 5) Questions for her and for Darden? Best interview experience ever and it was very conversational.

I think my interview was a bit rushed as well/did not go very well 1) We spent the first 3-4 minutes getting acquainted and discussing dogs since my interviewer’s dog was in the background 2) I then gave my interviewer a rundown of my personal, educational, professional history, and hobbies 3) They then asked me to tell them why I want to do an MBA what are my short term goals long term goals etc ( I think I screwed up here, although they didn’t clearly ask me to tell them why I want to go to Darden, I should have talked about it in the why MBA part 4) We then discussed how I have handled diversity at work place- I answered with examples 5) Was also asked how I have grown as professional- I talked about how I have become more adaptable- with examples again 6) Then I answered the- how do I plan to contribute to the Darden community 7) We then went on to discuss the questions that I had for my interviewer I feel that I really messed up the Why Darden part- although I wasn’t asked that specifically it seems that everyone has talked about it in their interviews, so I should have used some window somewhere to talk about it.

I recently interviewed with Darden on 3rd Feb with Adcom Officer, following are the questions she asked me: 1) Tell me about your childhood 2) Then about the career and academics 3) For me, I am pivoting my role from Banking to Retail so the reasons for that. 4) Why MBA? Why Darden and Why MBA now? What do you feel about the case method? 5) Situation based question- if anybody is not working to their potential, how would you deal with it? 6) what do you do when you are not working? 7) questions for me. Also, they begin their conversation from a small talk, like what were you doing on a weekend, or how was day, something like this.

25 minutes long: TMAY, Why MBA, Why Darden, Questions for interviewer. (My interviewer seemed to be in a hurry/not-interested, asked to finish answers fast. I was cut in between a couple of times to finish fast.). Takeaway: Keep answers crisp. I am not sure, finishing interview so fast is a good sign or a bad sign (Haha)

Sharing a quick brief of my interview experience. In essence it was more conversational (45 mins) with a current student and had primarily frequently asked questions: • Classic “tell me about yourself.” Here, I spoke about my family, my undergraduate studies, and my career background. I created hooks around getting a team to collaborate and leading multicultural teams and that led to the following questions in between my introduction • Why an MBA, why now • Why Darden? Be sure to articulate well here and also talk about what you can bring to the community in your answer • Tell me about a challenging situation at work and how you overcame it. Follow STAR method but instead of ending with just results, try mentioning any soft skills/results achieved and how you've carried them into some other work/project/personal life but do it in an organic way • Can you talk more about the experience (on resolving conflict and getting a team to cooperate)? • What do You do Outside of Work? What Community Activities do You Participate In? • Did you encounter difficulties or problems working with people from different backgrounds? What did you learn from that experience? • Lastly, she asked if there was anything we may have missed or anything I wanted to add. Here, I talked about the clubs, initiatives, and activities I’m interested in and asked the questions I had for her.

[My interview spans] 25 minutes long: TMAY, Why MBA, Why Darden, Questions for interviewer. (My interviewer seemed to be in a hurry/not-interested, asked to finish answers fast. I was cut in between a couple of times to finish fast.). Takeaway: Keep answers crisp. I am not sure, finishing interview so fast is a good sign or a bad sign (Haha)

I recently interviewed with Darden on 3rd Feb with Adcom Officer, following are the questions she asked me: 1) Tell me about your childhood 2) Then about the career and academics 3) For me, I am pivoting my role from Banking to Retail so the reasons for that. 4) Why MBA? Why Darden and Why MBA now? What do you feel about the case method? 5) Situation based question- if anybody is not working to their potential, how would you deal with it? 6) what do you do when you are not working? 7) questions for me. Also, they begin their conversation from a small talk, like what were you doing on a weekend, or how was day, something like this.

1) Start talking about yourself (no time limit was mentioned) --- During the introduction, I created hooks around getting a team to collaborate and leading multicultural teams and that led to the following questions in between my introduction 2) Can you talk more about the experience (on resolving conflict and getting a team to cooperate)? 3) How did you incorporate diverse perspectives as a leader? 4) You are doing well already so Why MBA, Why Darden? 5) Any questions for me? Time: 42 mins

I had my interview with Katherine Alford. The first 10-15 minutes were dedicated to the classic “tell me about yourself.” Here, I spoke about my family, my undergraduate studies, and my career background. After that, she asked me a few questions, including: Why an MBA, why now, and why Darden? Tell me about a challenging situation at work and how you overcame it. Did you encounter difficulties or problems working with people from different backgrounds? What did you learn from that experience? Lastly, she asked if there was anything we may have missed or anything I wanted to add. Here, I talked about the clubs, initiatives, and activities I’m interested in and asked the questions I had for her. Best of luck!

Had my interview with a second year student , I am an reapplicant with a GMAT waiver, 5 years experience. The interviewer told in the beginning about the format, 20 minutes for the interview and the last ten minutes for the questions that i have for her, Questions: Tell me about yourself ( Specifically asked to complete in 5-10 min) Tell me about a time when you had worked with people from different backgrounds Tell me about an experience you have on global scale Why MBA and why darden? Finally any questions i have for her? I dont think she has any list of questions that she came up with for the interview. And be prepared to take interviews in short notice most probably within a week as darden is releasing slots only a week at a time compared to last years wherein we had the opportunity to select slots available for the entire round cycle.

You'll do great ! Good luck! Darden's adcom team is super friendly My interview was very straightforward with no tricky questions: - 5-10mins tell me about yourself/walk me through your resume - why MBA? This is really a goals question so if they ask this, it's good to preface the 'why' by restating your goals - ST & LT Goals may be asked seperately if you dont answer it - Why Darden? Be sure to articulate well here and also talk about what you can bring to the community in your answer - Tell me a time you had a challenging situation at work - What do you like to do for fun - Tell me about a time you worked with someone different than you For the Tell me about a time questions, definitely follow STAR method but instead of ending with just results, try mentioning any soft skills/results achieved and how you've carried them into some other work/project/personal life but do it in an organic way. For e.g. "TMAT you worked with someone different than you" The result could be: " we ended up achieveing 10% improvement in that project, BUT more importantly, I learned that working with someone different than me creates a learning opportunity (or some other specific trait you learned) All the best!

Just Finished my interview: First 10-15 mins for tell me about yourself. talking about my family undergrad, and CV then 1 question about (Why MBA? Why Darden?) Challenging situation at work and how did you overcome it? when working with people from a background different than you and what did you learn? Something we missed or you want to add? (here i told her about the Clubs, initiatives, or activities im interested and made my questions to her)

I've finished my interview with Darden and am waiting to hear back on their decision (Oct. 16th). Interview was straightforward and was not structured really at all. I met with an adcom director and a student interviewer who was in training. They were really nice! Although it's unstructured be sure you have a list of points you want to get across about yourself. You have to proactively "plug" yourself because they will not really ask too many probing questions unless the conversation gets stale. Good luck!

My interview was similar to what is mentioned in interview debriefs. First 10-15 mins for tell me about yourself. Why MBA? Post MBA Goals Why Darden? TMAT Challenging situation at work and how did you overcome it? TMAT when working with people from a background different than you and what did you learn? Something we missed or you want to add? Any questions for interviewer. Overall it was very conversational.

I had my interview in-person as part of a visit day. It was very straightforward. She was nice and welcoming. Questions themselves were very basic MBA interview questions and don't seem to have changed based on the other interview debriefs I've seen here: - Walk me through your resume - Why MBA? - LT/ST goals - Why Darden - Tell me about a challenging situation - Time you worked with someone different than you - What do you like to do for fun?

- TMSAY - Tell me what do you do at your job? -What kind leader are you? - Why Darden, why MBA, ST and LT Goals? -Why did you go to ** University? - How has working in diverse environments impacted your life? - Extracurriculars? - Questions for me?"

Very friendly, and very open-ended, I did most of the talking. - TMSAY - Tell me what do you do at your job? - How has working in diverse environments impacted your life? - Why Darden, why MBA, ST and LT Goals? - Extracurriculars? - Questions for me?