London Business School LBS 2013 - Calling all MBA Applicants

I was accepted as well!

@esdykes: did the email mention that you received a scholarship specifically?

It did - totally not expected. They did ask me to get back to them quickly so that they could offer the money to someone else, so I wouldn't say that hopes are dashed if you did not receive mention of scholarship in the admit email.

Congrats Nutsngum!!!

Awesome, same to you!

Congrats to all those accepted. Well done! Great present for Christmas/NewYear....

Admit ! with a completely unexpected scholarship !

Now that I know my decision, I'll report on the interview I had for my LBS Round 1 application.

My interview seems to have been different than every other LBS interview report I read. Going in, I was very prepared to speak about my background, my leadership experiences and why I wanted to go to LBS, but he threw me off with questions to test my business knowledge and knowledge about the world. He asked me two questions about me: why MBA/why LBS and what type of int'l work experience I have. After that, my interviewer asked me a bunch of other questions, including:

What is the current price of oil?
What was the DOW at today?
Where do you get your news? What do you think of the future of the publishing industry?
Do you think the price of gold will go up? Why?
What do you think the future of Syria will look like?
What is the fiscal cliff?
What happened in China last week?
Who's the prime minister of Britain?

This went on for about 45 minutes. Then he also gave me a consulting case study:

How many quarters would it take to fill up our room and would that be taller than the future World Trade Center if you stacked them all up?

My presentation, I think went ok. It was about whether companies need to have integrity with their consumers.

I felt flustered and don't think I really talked about myself that much. He did say at certain points that he just wanted to see how I think and it was ok that I didn't know answers to some of his questions, so that comforted me a little.

But I'm guessing my performance in the interview played a large part in my ding notice today.

I'm really bummed about the ding. It will take me a while to get over this.

Does anyone know how open LBS would be to deferring the initial deposit payment until the 2nd round deadline? Or are they pretty strict against things like that?

Not sure about LBS specifically, but in general business schools are very reluctant to this. The reason is that they will admit R2 candidates based on who they already have for sure from R1. They like to have a diverse class in every sense. Anyway, asking will not hurt!

dinged. first post- long-time lurker, eastern european living in the UK.

Was pretty hopeful. such a bummer. now awaiting news from the french, and the US... congraats to everyone who made it...

Ward - I'm so sorry to hear this. There's no other response that I can think of other than: that totally sucks!

I'm not sure what I would do in your case, but I wonder if calling the admissions office and approach the discussion more about what you could have done differently (ie: feedback). If they mention the interview as the dagger in your application, you could then bring up this experience to them (politely). If they have other elements (work experience, recommendations, GMAT), then you can potentially rest a bit easier knowing that it wasn't this one horrible interview. Although, the outcome still sucks.

It's a fine line - I'd think long and hard about if I wanted to do that or not - but since LBS really prides themselves on training their alumni interviewers, it's just shocking that your experience was completely different from everyone else's.

Best of luck to you at other schools. I'm sure you'll be fantastic wherever you go, but I know that doesn't take the sting out of the LBS ding.

I had a similarly poor interview experience with an alum. The interview lasted less than an hour and the interviewer could not contain his disinterest in my answers nor his discontent with the role he landed post-LBS. I'm very disappointed but it was a learning experience, to say the least.

Thanks for the positive words. I have been thinking about sending LBS an email but haven't come to a final decision yet (I'm leaning towards "yes") to just make them aware. At the minimum, perhaps I can help a future applicant out in case he or she gets my interviewer. I know alum interviews always have a higher chance of someone going rogue, but my thinking is that every alum interview still has to answer the same questions from the Admissions Committee, and based on the questions asked me, I don't know what he could have written about to answer the AdCom's questions.

Also, I practiced and discussed my interview with two LBS alums who currently do interviews. In the aftermath, I told them about what I was actually asked, and they said they had never heard an interview like mine before.

At any rate, it's probably hard to read right now from my posts, but I've moved on. I don't want to sound like I'm whining because as you mention my ding could have been for some other completely different reason than my interview. It will always be a little bit of sour grapes, but I'm ready to focus on other options and if none of them work out, maybe reapply next year to LBS.

Congrats on all your admits and to everyone else who got good news from LBS.

Any news on the package ?

Anyone here having the internal debate between LBS vs. US schools?

I have an LBS vs. Insead internal debat

have been going back and forth on this one since i got the acceptance email. having a hard time imagining myself turning down 2 years in london, but definitely have a few doubts.

Where are you accepted in the US?

I have my doubts too...