"The interview was a lot of fun and by far the most relaxing out of all interviews I had. I felt that the interviewer was looking for cultural fit more than anything else and a couple of other people who interviewed with UCLA also agreed with me on this aspect. The questions were: 1. Tell me a a bit about yourself. 2. Goals/Why MBA? 3. Question about contributions you can make in class. 4. Question about managing teams. 5. Why Anderson?/What Classes are you interested in? 6. Questions about what do you do in your spare time 7. "If you could rewind this interview what do you want to say?" 8. Questions to the alum. My advice for other prospects who want to interview with UCLA is to find the time to connect with an alum or a current student to help you mock. They will be the best people to help you with the interview."

"I have to say that my UCLA Anderson interview was my favorite interview of the five that I had. What was helpful was that my interviewer was of the coolest as well. We hit it off pretty early and were able to bond over a common interest that we were both passionate about. When the interview proper began, I got the usual suspect questions: 1. Walk me through your resume 2. What are your long-term and short-term goals? 3. Why do you want an MBA? 4. What is your greatest achievement? 5. Tell me about a time you dealt with conflict with a co-worker. The rest of the interview was very conversational and the questions essentially flowed from the discussion. I really liked this interview style. There were challenges with the Skype connection so, we first tried without video, then ended up just continuing with a phone call. In total, I would say the interview went on for just shy of 45 minutes. Great interview! Honored to be an Anderson admit."

"The alumnus interviewer was a pro at interviewing!! He could very well find out the nitty-gritties about me. The interviewer had lot of biases based on my profile... and he was constantly trying to put words in my mouth and trying to see how I will react. It was a very free-flowing and fast-paced interview. He started off by asking me to highlight some key points I want him to take-away from the interview about my profile/me. I hadn’t prepared in this way (realized it is important!) but mentioned few things. He asked me what is it that drives me. What made me innovate when organizing X. He asked me why I wanted to go to the USA for MBA instead of from the top univs in my country. I also summarized my achievements at one of my workplace. He asked me if one of those things was my biggest accomplishment… I elaborated on why I felt so. He asked me for “a time I had tried something and faced failure” and when I stopped for few seconds to think of which experience will fit-in yet not overlap with what I’ve already told … he mocked that I don’t have any failures, only accomplishments. I said I was trying to avoid an overlap. I again mentioned one same experience as before but talked about the other perspective to it. Why MBA, Why Ross, etc."

"Haas EWMBA Program Interview Background - Biotech undergrad overseas, Masters in biotech (south bay), experience in marketing, digital marketing, operations, and project management (waterfall & agile) at a fortune 500 scientific company. Undergrad GPA is very low but masters GPA is 3.8 while working full time. I got the interview invite within a couple days after the submission deadline for R2. I chose 3/2/2017 for convenience and agreed to interview on campus. Attire recommendation is business - I wore a mid-blue suit, light blue shirt with tie just to be safe. This is pretty close to what I wear to work, less the tie and suit jacket. I would recommend giving yourself time to be comfortable in a suit, be it days or weeks in advance. There is parking right across Haas (event parking), but a spot may be hard to find if you run into a major event. Street parking time limits don't make sense to accommodate time needed for interview. I arrived early to grab a coffee and calm my nerves. The EWMBA Admissions office is not hard to find in the main admin building. I was greeted by admissions staff and waited in the lounge for my interview. I met with my interviewer and proceeded to a personal office for the interview. I am more accustomed to meeting in conference rooms, so this was something I did not expect. Try not to be distracted by all the files, computer, etc. in the office. We started off with introductions and general "tell me about yourself" type questions. I talked about what I studied in undergrad, masters, and how it led to my current role. I also talked about the business courses I took which naturally paved the way to "why MBA." My response was I always knew I wanted formal business education because I am interested in all facets of business, so the question really is "why now." I felt comfortable with 4 yrs of experience and I am confident I can contribute meaningfully to the cohort. Goals wise, I wanted to transition into software product management, and eventually start my own company. I gave rationales to why Haas is the perfect fit for this goal. The next stage was "walk me through your resume" type questions. I just went through my various experiences listed/not listed on the resume and painted a story of how I got to where I was, and how it'll help me get to where I want to be. I highlighted a couple of key achievements, since they accentuate my initiative, leadership, teamwork, and ability to make sense of complex things moving at 100 miles per hour. The last stage was about my recreation and how I spend my time outside of work. I had a hard time answering this question because my interests are diverse. I led with "I like to focus on work, but explore on interests." Some things seemed to connect and we had an enjoyable chat to slightly over the allotted interview time. My best advice is practice performing under pressure and be steady. I learned to shift my mindset from "convince them" to "share my passion and story." Also have solid stories on how you fit with the Haas defining principles and culture. The defining principles closely match my personal principles, so I just needed examples to demonstrate. Best of luck & see you at Haas!"

"Just got done with my Fuqua Round 1 interview with an alumnus in India. I'll be honest: it wasn't my best interview. Although the interview questions were fairly standard, the interviewer's reactions to my responses seemed far from encouraging. I felt that a lot more questions than usual were focused on my weaknesses, preconceived notions about me, and criticisms. Other questions included Why MBA, Why particularly in the US, Why Fuqua, Contribution to Fuqua, Career Goals, and a lot of behavioural questions. The interview lasted about 50 minutes. At this point, I'm not sure I can expect too much from Fuqua; but I'm not ruling it off just yet. Good luck to the others."

"Interviewed on campus. Let me try my best to recollect all the conversation: 1. The 2nd year student called out my name at the lounge where all prospects were sitting and busy talking to FY students. 2. Greeting each other we went to a room close by. 3. She had read my resume and had made notes on it. She told me that she'll be making a lot if notes during the next 45 minutes and that I wouldn't worry about it. 4. She introduced herself and II did so too. 5. She said my story and need for a MBA made perfect sense. 6. She said her brother tried entrepreneurship like me and felt that he wouldn't be able to be a part of a structured learning environment and asked me what I thought about it. 7. She asked me what I thought of as a good leadership style and asked me to share what type of a leader I think I'm. 8. Why Duke 9. A challenging team work experience 10. What makes me nervous 11. Which round I was applying in 12. Anything I wish to say that she didn't ask 13. Questions for her Feeling during and after the "conversation" was like any other conversation with a friend. It was very simple and friendly."

"I had scheduled a skype interview. Had it on 13th. Had a great experience. The interviewer was a 2nd yr, really nice person. He appeared to have some standard set of questions. Questions appeared pretty normal to me - - walk me through your resume. - leadership experience in a team where you faced difficulties. - teamwork experiences (conflict situation) - an achievement as a leader. - a time when you failed at something. - most constructive feedback that you have received, how did you react to it? A second situation where you applied the learning from that feedback. - what differentiates you from other applicants? - your biggest weakness (one) and how are you working on it? - what past experiences have prepared you for your future ambitions and how fuqua will help you? - what does team fuqua mean to you? - how will you build further on your leadership skills at fuqua? - what clubs/activities are you looking forward to? - any questions from me? Experience was great as I mentioned earlier. He was very friendly and we started off with a chat about how I was staying back in office for the interview and then a bit about Tata group after which we started with the questions. We had a few light moments as well! In the end, he also told me that I did well and wished me best for other parts of the process."

"I just had my in-person, off-site interview with a Fuqua alum (class of 2015). Similar to my Kellogg in-person interview, the questions were not your typical cookie-cutter "Walk me through your resume", "What are your short- / long-term goals", etc. These were a lot more behavioral, and I found myself talking a lot about lessons I had learned working in teams - both as a leader and as a follower. The questions require a lot more introspection, and it is very difficult to provide canned responses to them (and I actually like their method). Some of the bang-on questions you would have seen shared already include: 1. What does Team Fuqua mean to you and why? 2. What differentiates you from other applicants? 3. If admitted, what will you bring to Fuqua as a student? In what ways will you contribute? 4. What qualities of mine am I most proud of? (and after I gave a response to those, there were follow-up questions on specific examples of times when I exhibited those qualities.) 5. Give me an example of constructive feedback you have received and tell me about a specific instance of where you have applied that. 6. What surprised you most from your most recent performance review? I think that to do well in this interview, one needs to have at least five good stories with multiple lessons that you can call on if needed. Thinking back, I don't even think I talked about my short- or long-term goals at all. When I realized the pattern the interview was taking, I wove in some of my long-term goals and reasons I like Fuqua into some of my responses to other questions. All said, I think it went well. I didn't have time for questions in the end, but we did have a chat about class specializations, switching careers, Dan Ariely, and Duke sports. All the best to everyone preparing for their Fuqua interviews!"

"I am a reapplicant and I submitted my application in Early action. I had my interview(open-interview session) on-campus yesterday. I thought I will share my experience. 1) The visit to campus was awesome. There are FY students who are available at any time to answer your questions. They are all very friendly and supportive. They know what you are going through as they were on the same boat last year. 2) My interview was very casual. Here are some of the questions. -Walk me through your resume -Why Duke? -What was the constructive feedback that you ever gave to someone and how did the issue get resolved? -What was the constructive feedback that you received and...? -what motivates you the most? -What are some aspects that you liked about a team that you were part of? (I think it was framed differently but this kinda sums up! It was very conversational and the questions are kinda linked to one another). -What is your leadership style? -How would you contribute to Duke? -Tell me something about yourself that you haven't shared with the adcom before? -What are your hobbies? -questions for me? Overall, the SY students are trained very well. They are passionate about the school and want to know whether you fit in. Interview was very conversational. I had a very good vibe about it. I answered a question and the interviewer either nodded in agreement or added some new information related to it. It is like talking to a friend over lunch. There was a lot of back and forth conversation. I know that my reply might be late for the open interview session but for those of you who might be called in for interview, hope this helps. Good luck to all. Also, I got a chance to sit in a class and the overall experience is great. Duke is definitely one of the best schools!"

"I took the opportunity to visit campus last week and have my interview, which was very casual, zero pressure. Qs that I remember: Tell me about yourself Why MBA Why now Why Duke (very subtle, not a direct question) Qualities of a good leader What do you do in stressful team situations, give an example What role do you play in teams What sort of feedback did have you received What are your strengths/weaknesses What motivates you What will you contribute to Fuqua As a re-applicant, what have you done to strengthen your candidacy What would you say to adcom for 1 minute Qs for the interviewer Now the hard part comes, wait till December... Best of luck to everyone."

"My interview was with a second year student on campus. I waited in the waiting area with other interviewees then was taken to a small two person interview room. Brief introductions and chatter. Talked about the recent basketball camp out. Interviewer did not look at my resume beforehand. Asked me to walk through my resume. I was then asked many, many questions, I believe my interviewer was looking to get enough material to write his/her review. Questions were standard such as -- why mba, -- why fuqua, -- pitch yourself to admissions, -- name a weakness/strength, -- what makes you stand out etc. Interviewer was very pleasant throughout, at no time did I feel grilled. Interviewer ended interview by handing over card and stating that he/she was there to help and to reach out with any questions. Total time of about 40 minutes. I was worried about a couple things but neither hurt me: scheduled an interview only and skipped tour and class due to workload, dressed more towards consultant than banker attire (on the casual side)"

"Had my interview today, thought I would post a debrief: Interview was with an alum in India over Skype (I am in Mumbai, he is in Hyderabad). It was a very conversational interview, as is expected from Fuqua. The guy was very amiable and instantly put me at ease. He asked the following questions: - Walk me through your profile. We spent a good 7-8 minutes on this, because he wanted to know more about some of the things I have done. - Tell me about one piece of constructive criticism you have received and how did you work on it. (This question cam up earlier than I thought, so the flow of the interview was a little different) - Tell me about a good team work experience that you have had. - What would your current Manager see you as? - What is your biggest weakness? - How will Fuqua help you overcome this weakness? - What are top 2-3 initiatives that you want to be a part of at Fuqua? - Why MBA? Why now? Why Fuqua? (This one came last, by this time we had talked about everything. So I gave him my top 3 reasons for the first two questions. By then, he said ok I already know the reasons you want to go to Fuqua, so let's not discuss this) Then couple of questions for him and bye bye. Hope this is helpful for people."

"I got my interview at Columbia at the very far end of ED applications. I was already preparing myself for a ding without interview. I am glad and feel lucky to have received the invite for interview. I have given the interview process a 4/5 star as I believe the policy of contacting 1 alumni at a time does limit your options and as these alumni are almost always busy, it becomes very difficult to schedule one. CBS' rolling admission does put a pressure on you to get your materials and itnerviews in as earliest as possible. My first interviewer was out of town and thus could not reply in time to my request for an interview. I was lucky that my second interviewer was very quick to respond back to my request for an interview. I scheduled my interview for 4 days later and the drive to the interviewer's office was 30 minutes long. I arrived at his office at 11 AM and he was very cordial and happy to interview me that day. We started off with the alumnus providing his background, his current and past work experiences and then we moved onto the actual interview. I was told at the beginning that the interviewer already had some questions prepared to ask me as I had already sent my resume with the interview request. It started with some very particular questions and he wanted to understand why I chose a particular path be it my education or my professional experience. After I was also asked the reasons for opting for my field of studies whether it was my UG or Master's studies or my first job or extracurriculars I involved myself with. I was asked the standard why MBA, why CBS, Why NYC, Plan B, what other schools did you apply to and why, why did you apply to CBS in ED round when you applied to other schools etc (all the standard questions that you will get from clear admit's or mbamission's interview guides). The interview lasted 45 minutes and was very conversational. I was taken aback when I was asked about my plan B if I am not able to lets say get courses of my liking or internship/full time offer in the industry of my choice. At the end of the interview, I was asked to talk about any questions I might have for the interviewer. 1 lesson I learnt was to tackle every question in a way that will lead you to talk about how/what are you going to bring to CBS' community. Once you do that convincingly, interview should be easy to navigate. Make sure to have a plan B type of answer prepared so that you can show that you have done your due diligence. The interview feedback was submitted the very same evening Final Result: Ding after interview. Probably I was not able to tackle the Plan B type of questions convincingly or 'diversity' of the class of 2018 played a role, I wouldnt know for sure. Anything different for next time: Probably go over the interview guides by stacy blackman and clearadmit in detail to cover all the possible interview questions and their possible answers."

"Hi guys, I just had my first interview. And Pierre it was indeed in French, with just a small section in English. She is a 2008 alum doing innovation strategy for a tech company: My feeling about the interview is mixed. She was nice and she said she liked my profile. Yet I felt she really grilled me on future goal questions. First she asked me to describe my company, what we do, clients and so on, as she is from a completely different industry. The classic walk me through résumé and the trinity questions, all the while stopping me on the way to get more detail. We then spent a significant amount of time on my future goals (aka why don't I just go for them without an MBA, why this particular country, why that business, which segment I am interested in and why, and it went on and on and I provided tones of examples and personal anecdotes that landed me to wanting that particular line of business ). Other questions were: - Did you get in touch with people from the industry you are targeting? What did you learn from them? - How are you going to contribute at Insead - What are your plans B and C and so on (in terms of both region and jobs). Did you apply to others schools and why?. - What does your company (boss) think about you applying, how will he take the announcement, will you consider going back after the MBA, why? - Why do you choose Fonty over Singy? - What makes you stand out on your current job Then we talked about her career journey since INSEAD and spent some time on her previous job (until 4 months ago she worked for the same company as my partner so that helped). We then started talking in "future mode" and she gave me some pieces of advice to fully enjoy the best year of my life :) :ie. to do as many things as you can before school starts: a. Get rid of the third language requirement before september (not even sure I need that 3rd language, have to check), b. Waive the finance core courses of P1 and P2, so that I can take electives during this period and ultimately have time to travel when in Singy. c. Stay in fonty on weekends (and not go back to Paris) so as not to miss out on social events. d. Get my résumé ready to shoot before I start the programme Waiting for interview two! EDIT: Here is the debrief of 2nd Interview: Interviewer: 2003 alum, Managing Director of a Subsidiary of Real Estate company. It lasted two hours, he was actually nice, but clearly challenged my short term goal. To him, Consulting just didn’t make sense. He said that I would waste my time there, that it wouldn’t get me closer to my future goal that he actually liked. All the questions were around the countries in Africa in which BCG and McKinsey are based, who the heads of offices are, the types of projects they work on, who I talked to… Then he added that his friends in Consulting in Africa don’t get so many interesting projects other than with the governments, because African companies can’t afford MBB and that multinationals signed contracts with Europe or the US. So clearly going for Africa wouldn’t help, I’d rather work from a European office, I would get more African projects that way. Then questions on my long term goal, why Kinshasa and not another city, how I would get financing, which organisms do finance projects in Congo, we talked of the World Bank, the IMF, the UN, infrastructure projects in the country, the mining industry in the east, political uncertainties, the war, my family members’ projects and it went on and on. (thank you Jeune Afrique for keeping me informed). He then said that I would be better off working in PE or for the World Bank or UNDP, and that if there are no offices in Kinshasa I could build one. He actually had a point, but I had to defend my consulting position no matter what. That was hard :lol: :lol: He said that he got it that when people had no idea what they wanted they would go to consulting, but that I have a great project and he just doesn’t believe consulting is the way. I then asked him what he said he wanted to do when he applied to INSEAD, he answered CONSULTING :). No comment. All in all other than the job part that lasted almost an hour and a half, we only spent a couple of minutes on a couple of other questions: the 3 whys, a cultural choc, and ultimately how I would qualify my personality. And that was it. On the positive side, an hour before the interview I received an email from INSEAD informing me that I was awarded a merit based scholarship, the “INSEAD’s women” one. €15k, should I be admitted of course. So I mentioned it, he laughed and said, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I wouldn’t have spent so much time writing”… I just don’t know what he meant by that!!! :shock: :) Now the long wait! Good luck everyone!!!"

"Completed both my interviews last week. Interview 1 was an awesome interview, we took an hour than went to get lunch together to continue our conversation. Interviewer stopped short of literally saying he would recommend me but he said my story was very strong and that I had great leadership potential. Some questions I remember: Why INSEAD? Why an MBA? What other schools have you applied to? He asked specifically about my industry experience and how I had progressed in my career (I have a lot of micro-promotions over 5 years) He asked about a time I had failed and how I overcame my struggle What are your weaknesses? All in all, this was a great 1.5-2 hour conversation. I really enjoyed the experience and we had a very organic conversation, made me very excited to go to INSEAD! Interview 2 was equally awesome, but in a different way. My interviewer was significantly more senior (SVP at a public company) and appeared to play more of a bad cop role and was less responsive to my answers (didn't show as much emotion). Definitely a more challenging exercise but I believe I did pretty well - he was almost 16 years out of his INSEAD experience and was definitely reminiscing his experience a lot. He also asked some more odd-ball questions that I had a tougher time with: What book are you currently reading (coincidentally I am reading an INSEAD-book right now :-D ) What blogs do you read? How does your company help other companies and how could you help mine? How do you learn from your mistakes, what process do you follow? In addition to these questions there were some of the standard Why INSEAD, Why MBA, Where else are you applying type questions. Overall, I think my interviews went better than I had expected although I probably could have done better on my second interview. Excited to hear back from INSEAD in 2-3 weeks!!"

"So yesterday I had my second interview... so let's see how it goes :) Both interviewers graduated quite a long time ago, though maintain the network through the Alumni club. First interview took 45 minutes, was rather conversational without an intention to challenge my aims. The person had the same background (incl. company) as I do and my arguments were extremely clear for him. He was interested in my 3rd essay and the way I spend time out of office. Second interview took almost 2.5 hours. We met on a weekend for a cup of coffee and ended up chatting for quite a long time. I noticed, the interviewer was not keeping track of time and something like after 2 hours found that it is already quite late and asked me if I have any questions. I take it as a good sign, as seems I managed to capture his attention with our discussion. He is an entrepreneur and was interested in my opinion on this or that business idea, basing on my previous experience. Tried to challenge me a bit on not doing MBA, but going into consulting firm. Standard questions are why MBA, why now, why INSEAD. Be ready to provide an answer, that fits your story. Anyway, this was discussed several times on the pages of this forum :) Have my fingers crossed..."

"Hi guys. I thought I'd share my interview experience in case it helps. Not for the first time, I met with an Admissions Director in Europe. We actually had a great conversation. I had met my interviewer during Sloan‘s ‘On The Road’ event in my home city earlier this year, so we were already quite relaxed in each others presence. This was a seasoned interviewer and, all in all, a tough person to read. I felt we had a good bond and I could answer all their questions confidently and enthusiastically, so left feeling I had done well. Specific questions asked (maybe not in this exact order): - What has changed since your last application? [or since you submitted your application – always be prepared for this one!] - Tell me a bit more about [local charity I’m involved with and included on my resume] and what they do. - Give me a specific example of your leadership progression while [in my current role]. - What’s your long-term goal after coming to Sloan? - Have you considered which track you’d like to pursue? - You will be in the upper age range. Have you considered how you’ll handle this? - Anything else you’d like me to know about you? [good opportunity to jump right into a ‘greatest hit’ that has not been covered up to now] - Any questions for me? - Any final comments? In general, Sloan gives you a lot of opportunities to mention things important or relevant to your application – be ready to grab those! – but I also think my experience as an older-than-average candidate might be different to the norm. Sloan is also renowned for behavioural questions which means you may need to go deep into a particular story – way deeper than you might have planned. Have a few good stories to mind and rehearsed in your head before the big day or, better still, practice telling those stories with a friend who can dig into them and really press you for what you felt, how you reacted, why you did that etc. I really felt my mock interviews with my consultant, alum friends and the bathroom mirror (I kid you not!) helped to prepare me to give concise and passionate answers."

"I had a really good experience from the Booth interview. I was nervous going in but got comfortable as the interview started because the alumni I was talking to was very friendly. I was skeptical about the difference in my background and that of the interviewer ( I come from engineering background and my interviewer was from investment management background). The best advice I had recieved from my friends (from investment/finance industry) was to be well prepared to face questions about my industry. The reason - the investment professionals generally have to understand investment opportunities in various industries in their jobs so they might ask me lots about mine. And how right they were --- a good 10-15 mins of my interview was about what my industry was going through and why. And I was prepared well for this bit. And then there were standard questions which I had prepared well (already mentioned in this forum). But I was honest and the preparation that I did enabled me to come up with spontaneous answers as well. The biggest focus of the interview was understanding how well I will fit in the Booth culture and I tried my best to argue for my fit. Although I think I could have done better. I shared a story about Booth's origins which I really liked, to argue my case. (Interviewer's face lit up as I did so, because I think he had heard it before) All in all, the interview ended with a detailed discussion on the questions I had asked my interviewer and we discussed my hobbies too in the end with jokes about sports rivalries. I am clear that interview is just another inputs probably inline with the recommendations as they provide a third person perspective. But last few days for me have been spent analysing what things could get me dinged at this stage. My interview was quite long timewise with nearly 13 different questions (Standard Qs + others). Fingers crossed ! Hope my experience helps everyone here!"

"I had my interview couple of days ago off-campus. My interviewer was super nice, friendly, positive and I would say even supportive. The main questions asked were: 1. Why MBA? 2. Why Booth? 3. How did you decide to apply for MBA? 4. What drives you? 5. Short-term goal? Which companies? 6. To which schools did you apply besides Booth? Why have you chosen these particular schools? 7. What do you expect from MBA? After every question there were several additional questions, digging into details. We ended up talking for 2 hours: the official part of the interview lasted about 80 minutes and after that we talked for 40 minutes about life in Chicago and post MBA opportunities. Overall I would say it was a very pleasant, nice and friendly talk."

"I recently interviewed on campus with a second-year student and the questions were very similar to what have been posted before - so thanks to those that shared with us your interview experiences! Below were some of the questions I got - - walk me through your resume - leadership example - a time you worked with someone with different working styles than yours - a time you failed - a time you worked under uncertainty and ambiguity - a time when you had to say no - what I can bring to the Booth MBA - anything else I would like to add My interviewer was extremely nice and I so appreciated that they responded to my answers so it was a very interactive and conversational experience. Good luck to all!"