I had two interviews with IESE Adcom and I scheduled both of them on the same day with a gap of 5 hours between each. Both were Skype. 1st Interview: The first one went on for almost 1h15m and she said we are over the scheduled time so had to wrap up with a couple of questions I had. I wouldn't call this a conversational interview at all except the first 3-4 questions and the questions were scattered criss cross with no particular order. Below are the questions I was asked in the order mentioned (at least of what I remember) Tell me about yourself Didn't you want to stay back in the US? (I moved from US to India after 7 years) Tell me more about the app (I had founded a US based non-profit mobile app taking inspiration from Ellen Degeneres) Why not make this app for India? Tell me about the size of your current company When is your current company founded? How did you get this role and what is the best thing about your job? What do you like and what do you not like about managing people? In the few months you moved from US to India, what are some of the culture shocks you experienced? Did you travel outside of India in the last few months? What things do you want to improve upon when you come to IESE? Why do we want you in our team at IESE? Tell me about a difficult time you had in life. What other careers did you research about for a career change? How did you know it is Consulting? How do you plan to finance IESE? How did you research your schools and how did you end up with IESE? How will you choose if you have multiple admits? What if you do not break into Consulting at IESE? What other options have you thought about? Tell me about a difficult member you had to manage. What kind of a leader do you want to become? How do you plan to prepare for moving to Spain? What will you do from now until start of program? 2nd interview: This was more relaxed and I was actually at ease and confidence. The questions below in the order asked: Walk me through your CV like you're talking to your grandmother Why IESE? Why Consulting? Tell me about the XYZ detail about your start up. What if Consulting does not happen? What does your day to day job look like? Tell me about a time when you faced resistance. Tell me about a time when you worked in teams. How would your friends describe you? Tell me about your biggest accomplishment. How do you plan to finance? What if you have to come back to India after your MBA? Any questions for me?

So i had my Darden interview yesterday. It went exactly like all the other interview debriefs. Started off with tell me something about your family. Then childhood and college (more specifically extracurricular). I was also asked why engineering, this is primarily because my background is in biotechnology so she asked why not become a doctor etc. Then we talked about professional life. She asked how you managed teams from different cultures and background The Why MBA and Why Darden? Then we talked about life outside work - we even talked about Harry Potter because i said that i am reading that currently. In summary, the interviewer is looking for a conversation and gives you ample opportunity to tell her who you are in person outside of your essays. What is it that makes you special - i have consulting experience and team management experience so i made sure i drove those points really well. My interview lasted for about 32 mins and that includes the questions i had for her. It was an amazing conversation and i couldn't get enough of it. It wasn't like i was speaking to the person for the first time. My suggestion would be to say whatever you love and if the interviewer loves that too then there comes out a personal connection - in my case that was Harry Potter (never thought that reading it will help me in an interview) And most importantly, i believe because i was calm the conversation happened naturally and i told her more things (on a personal front) than i had imagined. All the best!

I'm a reapplicant: last time I interviewed it was just answering a bunch of questions, but this time it was completely different: - it was a much more conversational setting. - I was welcomed in the seating area and we exchanged some small talk about the trip and the weather as we walked to the office we'd be in. - he stressed several times I shouldn't be nervous, that this is just a conversation (I wasn't, I'm the person that gets nervous prior to something but not during) - It started with him giving me his business card, and me returning mine (handed over with both hands, as is customary in Asian culture). - My interviewer started asking about the company I work for, what we do, to explain the workings of the technology behind it, basically, it felt like we were talking for 20 minutes about the company and pretty much anything except for me. - after about 5 minutes I started working in some personal things that I knew I wanted to mention during my interview. which I continued doing throughout the rest of the interview. - I was further asked about different aspects of my applications: --why my MBA, why now, especially since I have a lot of years of experience -- asked about me: a short overview of my hobbies, my career -- questioned if I would consider going into the consulting, and if I'm 100% set on Spain, just to see my reasoning and whether it's solid -- talked about an example I gave in my essay -- talked about various point in my essays. -- asked questions which I guess came from points raised in my letters of recommendations, talked about my recommenders and why they are not my current bosses. etc etc. overall a very positive experience. in the end, after I asked whether I was to expect any news between now and my Assessment Day, he was surprised I had an Assessment Day. (I do because I'm a reapplicant) He told me he would check, and let me know, and invited me to connect on LinkedIn. He stated he thought it was a great interview (which I thought also) total interview time was 1h20 minutes, and we would probably have kept talking if he did not have another interview scheduled

I had my interview this morning with a second year student and overall it was an enjoyable and conversational experience. Question included: -Walk me through your resume -Describe your leadership style -Talk about a time you were on a team that had conflict -Talk about a time you received feedback ...and other very behaviorally based questions. After the interview I got to sit in on a class, take a tour and sit for a Q&A session with an admissions officer. Overall, it was an enjoyable day adn I had a positive reaction to the whole thing.

Just had interview on skype with adcom member. It was more of a conversation than an interview. It went for 45 minutes and the interviewer was really sweet and calm. Question are as below. 1. Lets talk about your early life. How you grew, you college decision and degree, activities in college etc. 2. Tell me about the transition from college to work and everything related to your work. 3. Why MBA? Why Darden? 4. Tell me about when you worked on teams and led teams. 5. Questions for me. It was overall really smooth. After a long time I was able to talk heart out about my passion and what I want to do with my life.

Doing any research, you'll see that Darden is known for asking one question: "tell me about yourself." This still holds true and is what my interview centered on. They're not there to grill you on bullet points in your resume, they want to hear from you what's been important professionally and personally in your life. As you tell them about what you have been up to and your story, the interviewer will stop you and ask questions. This went on for about 25-30 minutes and then it was my turn to ask questions, which they will give you until the 45 minute mark to do so. Getting to campus is pretty straight forward (just map it), and I would recommend staying at the Inn at Darden if you are nervous about running late since it's on campus. Parking is very easy. The deck, which they'll instruct you to park at, is right by the admissions office. Traffic isn't bad in Charlottesville, so as long as you know how long it'll take to get to campus and aim to arrive at Darden 20-30 minutes before your interview, you'll be fine.

I was lucky to be accepted into the program. I would like to share my interview experience. It was 50 minutes in Madrid. - Tell me about your academic and professional background, in general. - Why an MBA and why now? - Your immediate goals after the program and the long term ones? - If you are to choose 10 people to live with you in an isolated island, what professions would you pick? - what is inflation? - who is adam smith? - what is the GDP of your country? - what is 12*12-10? - who is the president of China? - What languages do you speak? - what is 279/6? - If you have the chance to meet famous person, dead or alive, who would be that person? and why? - How will you be financing your study? I was just myself and straightforward. It turned to be good interview, and have received the offer on Monday.

I had my interview with an IE alumni over Skype. The interview was very conversational and took about 30 minutes. We mainly went over my resume. Some of the questions asked: 1) Walk me through your resume 2) Why MBA? Why IE? 3) You've already been promoted a lot of times. Would you join IE if you get promoted again this year? 4) Do you have any international experience? How will cope up with the class since the student body is very diverse? 5) What are your short term & long term plans? 6) More about my essays( which focused highly on AI, machine learning etc.) : How much do you think we depend on AI and robots now? Do you think this will change? What will be the impacts? 7) Do you have any questions for me? ( I asked a few regarding the labs and career prospects as a foreigner in Spain ) We ended up chatting about his experience at IE and how it had impacted him. Overall, it was very friendly and not much of a psych interview. I was told there might be a second round of interview with the admissions people from Spain. But, got admitted nearly a week after the interview.

So I had my interview this morning. Questions were: - I see you already have a solid educational background why do you want to do an MBA? - Please describe you professional background - What kind of leader are you? - I see from your CV that you work with the COO of your client's company. What do you do with him? - I see from your CV you have been involved in the hiring process of your company. What qualities are you looking for when hiring? - Questions for us Very relaxed enviornment. I liked the interview process a lot. Good luck!

Here's my interview experience. I had one round of interview, it lasted 30 minutes. Here are some questions I was asked and I expect the interview pattern to be about the same: 1. Tell us something about yourself: Introduce yourself, where you are from, your educational and professional background. Keep it short- about 2 minutes and be aware that the next question would be framed from your answer. So prepare leading answers. 2. Why MBA, why HKU. Make sure you are in line with what you have written in your essays and be sure of your story 3. What is the current state of the Indian economy in your opinion? (I have a background in Economics, so it was relevant but I think they do ask a couple of questions on current affairs) 4. Discussion of my hobbies, extra curriculars, social work: They asked at least 3 questions related to these. I am passionate about my eca's and it was reflected in my CV. They are interested in knowing more about you and what excites you 5. What did you learn from your colleagues? 6. If you could change one thing in your life right now, what would it be? 7. Questions for us. For two questions, I took my time to think and answer the questions and not just jump to any answer. Overall, I had a great interview experience. Just be confident, smile and speak from the heart!

Hello! I just had my interview today. It was just one interviewer. Duration was around 30 min, + 15 min my question. I could say that the interviewer indeed read my essays and CV, even checked the web site of the company where I work. Prepare answers to how your colleagues would describe you in 3 words of phrases, what they would name as your weakness etc. Make sure to prepare your questions to them to show you ve done your research and want to know far beyond that is mentioned on the web site. No case to solve or anything like that.

Interview for J-Term. I read through all the interview reports here and thought I’d add my experience to this list. I was invited to interview and matched with one alumni (who turned down the request). It wasn’t until I contacted the 3rd alumni that I was finally able to schedule an interview. In total it took 12 days from the interview invite to my interview date. Quite a challenging wait because I was anxious to get it over with as you can imagine. The interviewer started off the interview by asking me: a) Which other MBA programs I had applied to? (None other than Columbia) b) Why was I not applying to Stanford? So in order to answer the second question, I backtracked and covered the standard questions – Walk through of my résumé, Why MBA, Why Now, Why Columbia, and finally why not Stanford. The interview then took a turn away from the question list and we got into a conversation about start-ups (because my interviewer works in one and I am looking to start-up in NYC). Somewhere along the line he remembered that he needed to take some notes and so he scanned through a list that he had on his computer and said that the only question we hadn’t discussed was “What is your 5 year post-MBA goal?” The whole interview was a conversation and so there was a back and forth with me asking him contextual questions throughout the conversation. All in all – quite a relaxed experience. My interviewer also told me that he does tons of interviews and would recommend that I be admitted to Columbia. Of course – I’m very excited about this but the game’s not over till its over. Waiting to hear from Columbia!

Interview was exactly as described here by everyone else. We held the interview at his office in a meeting room. It started off as a normal job interview and slowly changed into a conversation. I also felt that he placed a lot of weight on the time that he gave me to ask questions (remember to tailor your questions to the interviewer – no point asking a interviewer who graduated 20 years ago which class to take or how was his time at CBS). Questions that he asked me: 1. Why an MBA (he asked me to use the opportunity as well to walk him through my CV)? 2. Why Columbia and why New York? 4. Do you have any particular classes or professors in mind? 5. As I am in investment banking he asked me to detail a recent deal that I worked on (he went into technical questions – not valuations but rather what is the driver for the industry, how would x, y and z impact valuation, etc – but they were basic questions nothing compared to a real banking interview) 6. Give me a situation where you worked in a team. 7. Give me a situation where you had difficulty in concluding a deal. 6. Give me a situation where you had difficulty with a team member. 8. How many people have worked for you (juniors), in what capacity and how did you manage them? 9. What are you future plans; both short term and long term? 9.1 What would you do if your plans failed? I told him that I would like to return to my home country post-MBA to which he responded if this was absolute or if I am flexible and willing to relocate and why? 10. Have I spoken to alumni and / or current students and who are they – he didn’t care about names rather how do I know them, etc. After about an hour he gave me about 15 min to ask questions.

This forum was a great resource in helping me prepare for the interview and get accepted to CBS, and I wanted to submit my experience in order to help others in the future. Where as in previous years, it seemed like the CBS admissions office gives you a list of 6 people to contact. This year, the admissions office only offered one alumnus to contact. We set up the interview in a coffee shop – casual setting, very relaxed format. I wore a blazer, and the interviewer was in casual wear. She started by giving me a bit of background on herself, and dove into questions for me. I was asked: Tell me about yourself. Why MBA, and why Columbia? Why an MBA in the longer context of your future goals? Tell me about a time when you were a leader. What do you do outside of work? What activities do you plan on being involved with at CBS? Why an MBA even though you majored in business for undergrad? What if you don’t get into the career you planned for? Any questions for me? Overall, the interviewer was very encouraging and made sure I was comfortable. She took copious notes, and noted down the details of the classes and activities I said I planned to be involved in at CBS. The conversation lasted about one hour in total.

The interview went nice, the interviewer was not making it stresfull and was very kind. Only personal questions, mostly around my motivation and my personal qualities (how my colleagues would describe me in 3 words, and what could they name as my weakness and area of improvement). I could see that the interviewer definitely read my essays and CV, even checked the web site of the company where I am currently working. I prepared quite detailed list of questions far beyond the infromation which could be found on the web site, I think this left good impression. In general i would say that my impression of the interview is consistent with that is described here: https://www.general-ed.com/rotterdam-interview-experience

The interviewer (Associate Director of Admissions) started off with normal talk: how are you, where are you from, what do you love about this city etc.? Then he asked me about my interests and hobbies (weird I know that he started with extra-curriculars, but I guess it descended from my answer to what I love about the city). We discussed at lengths about my interests and what drives them. The interviewer had prepared few questions from my resume. So, he asked questions about my job profile and things he was interested in knowing. He was digging very deep and there were follow up questions for each answer. Basically, he was trying to gauge what I do at work and how? Then he asked why do you need an MBA? Why Stern? And finally, any questions for the interviewer. I did not face a single behavioral question, which seemed odd to me. But yes, the entire interview was very relaxed and conversational. The interviewer was genuinely interested in knowing me better. The interview lasted a little more than 30 minutes. Please note that I had an off-campus interview in India. If you are interviewing in NY, your interview might be a bit different depending on who your interviewer is. So, read other Clear Admit debriefs and prepare accordingly. All the very best :)

Cambridge put on an amazing event for the interviews. We arrived to dinner at Queens college - started with a few networking drinks with more people than I'd expected (maybe 75 odd). Dinner was great and the candidates I was sat with were fantastic company for the evening and the next day. The following morning we arrived at the business school building at 8.30am and were given our schedule for the day as well as refreshments and light breakfast food. Everyone was different but my day consisted of a faculty interview first thing (over and done with before many others!), a "why Cambridge" presentation (all present), a "careers workshop" with a careers consultant, a lunch with current students and a walking tour of Cambridge. The interview itself was a walk through my career, my logic behind business school and thoughts on life after with a few challenges that were a bit tricky. Felt less like a friendly chat and a bit more formal than other interviews.

Originally scheduled with an alumn working in a sector I've never worked in, (and I've worked in most sectors during my consulting career). Unfortunately my interviewer had to cancel last minute due to work commitments so I was reassigned an alumn working in another sector I wasn't too familiar with (not a "perfect fit" like some people seem to have experienced, but a really great person nonetheless). In fairness to LBS they handled this reschedule well and rescheduled quickly. The interview lasted about an hour, went through the "why LBS" questions, a few questions about why I would want to stay in the UK to study, how I will contribute to LBS life, what I was looking forward to the most. There were definitely some questions the interviewer had to ask but overall it was more like a coffee with a new work colleague vibe and felt more about personality fit than anything else. Interviewer claimed not to have read my application so I did a quick 5 min whistle-stop tour of my CV in the beginning. Case study was quick and easy, not something you could prepare for other than basic presentation skills - making a number of points, highlighting pros and cons, rounding off your argument with an overall recommendation etc. Just common sense really. Spent the last half hour asking my interviewer questions about their experience at LBS.

Questrom was my first ever MBA interview experience. A tip to the future applicants who will soon be interviewing -> I would not categorise it as an interview but rather just a healthy conversation. Do not forget the fact that it is a blind interview and that it is only about half an hour long. So don't tell a sob story but rather keep things short and sweet.. The questions you must know how to answer -> 1.Tell me about yourself (this question sets the tone of the conversation so prepare a god-damn pitch !) 2.Why MBA and more importantly why now? 3.Why Questrom ? (Tell them what they want to hear... Make them feel like Questrom is Harvard) 4.Short term and Long term goals ? 5.What if your Short term goals don't work out ? 6.Collaboration story ? (Tell about a time you worked in a team) 7.What are your greatest strengths? 8.What are your greatest weaknesses? 9.Failure story ? (Use the STAR method) 10.Resume specific questions (CRAM that baby up... Make sure you know what you wrote on the resume and can explain it well. All the best. P.S-> I got accepted with a full ride and I think my interview played a HUGE role in fetching me this kinda money. So, prepare well and again - Make them feel like Questrom is the best freaking B-school in the world! All the best :)

Interviewed on campus with adcom, and my experience was very positive. What was supposed to be a 30min interview turned out to be a 50min interview (I suppose I had such flexibility because I interviewed on campus). Questions were straightforward, and mostly focused on getting to know my work and leadership experience. In the beginning, we started off with a small talk and jumped right into questions. See below for some of the questions I'd been asked. -Is this the first time you visited the campus? -Tell me about your work experience -Why an MBA? -Why Johnson? -Tell me about your leadership experience, in/outside of work -What are the three most important characteristics of a leader? -What are you doing to prepare for your MBA? -What specific clubs are you looking to join? -Any questions for me?