Calling all Wharton Fall 09 Applicants

Congrats to everyone who received an interview invite. If y'all are coming to campus PM me...happy to show y'all around. G'luck.

Man, this is going to be a long five weeks while I await the decision from Wharton. I walked out of that interview thinking I absolutely nailed it. Since that day, I keep thinking of how I could have improved my responses, and as such, thinking maybe I didn't do as well as I initially estimated.

As a member of what should be a large application group (white male with a finance background) going into an industry that the school is currently having trouble placing graduates in (IB and eventually PE), I wonder how they were planning to use my interview. If they use my interview to guage my ability to methodically answer questions and maintain a polished and professional demeanor during conversations, along with my ability to establish awesome rapport (which the interviewer and I certainly had), then perhaps my interview will be a positive aspect of my application. But, if they are going to use my interview to attempt to extract additional information regarding my motivation behind my goals, outside the information that can be extracted from my application, then my interview may not help me rise to the top of my bucket.

It's difficult to determine whether I am in the "we want to admit this person" or the "we have doubts about this person, but let's bring him into interview for a waitlist spot" pre-interview group. If it's the former, I don't think I did enough to change their minds. If it's the latter, sadly, I don't think I did enough to change their minds there either.

Have any of you former admits (from last year or before) had waffling thoughts regarding your interviews the more you thought about it, only to receive good news about an admit?

Hi Snayt-

I emailed one of the 3 alumni in my country the day I got my interview invite, no response. After a week I emailed another guy, who was willing to interview me but suggested I interview with another Wharton alumni he knew who lived a lot closer. The closer alumni is now going about trying to get his information into the Wharton system so I can interview by him. My goal is to get everything wrapped up my the end of Nov. But definitely don't hesitate to email another alumni after 3-4 business days of no response.

Thank you for your advice.
Today I have finally received response from one alumnus and scheduled my interview.

It's a classic process: you get out of there with a positive feeling, then you start thinking about it, and tell yourself "man, I could have done that and that better, that answer was crap", etc. I don't know how good a judge you are of yourself (have you been completely surprised before after an interview in the negative sense?), but from what I hear, there is nothing you could have done more. If they don't accept you, it won't be because of your interview.

PS: who did you have? Remember the name?

Thanks for the encouragement. I am not sure if its in the pocket but I know I am a good applicant. What worries me is exactly how bad the competition will be this year.

Hey people

I completed my interview(HUB) yesterday. The interviewer was friendly, warm and was trying to make the candidates comfortable.
Qs are:-

Career prog?
You seem to have moved upwards in your career very fast. What are the qualities which has enabled you to do so?
Why an MBA now(as you already have one)?
I can see how your goals are fitting into W, but u tell me how?
Outside of classroom and your career exp, how will u contribute to W( social & extra-curr scene)?
Any questions for me?
Any thing that has been missed out?

The entire experience was extremely relaxed and conversational. I am kind of satisfied, now the waiting game begins

I had my interview yesterday on campus with a second year student (and I got to meet shmegs). I thought the interview was difficult because 30 minutes was a very short time to get through all the detailed questions and I didn't feel like I had the opportunity to build up much of a repoire/conversational tone.

So I am feeling much like Meddling Kid...not sure if I did enough to change their minds if they thought I was strong or they were on the fence about me.

the main questions i can remember:
-walk through resume
-why have you made the career choices that you have made
-why mba/why now/why wharton
-why is wharton a good fit for you/why are you a good fit for wharton
-conflict in team and how to resolve it
-difficult team situation
-what are you interests outside of work/what are you passionate about
-how do you measure success

good luck to everyone who is interviewing.

That's defo tougher than the other guy, hope it went on well. Fingers crossed!

Again, for all of you interviewing over here, I'm willing to meet up (although I'll be away for the next 10 days); if you're interviewing after Thanksgiving shoot me a PM.

It just happened to me. Got out of the interview feeling great, but now I'm having doubts... oh man.

We are all in the same boat. There is one question that I could have answered better, everything else was great but I keep thinking about it, again and again... arggg

Are the interviews definitely application blind? Is there a place on the Wharton site that explains this?

Yes it is, refer to the adcom blog here : https://adcomblog.wharton.upenn.edu/

Can anyone please repost the recommmender questions for W?

1. How long have you known the applicant and describe your relationship to the applicant?
2. How would you rank this applicant compared to his/her peer group? Please describe the peer group to which you are comparing this applicant (for example,
employees with comparable work experience and level of responsibility).
3. How would you describe the applicant’s personal integrity?
4. What observations do you have concerning the applicant’s leadership abilities, team and/or group skills?
5. How would you describe the applicant’s sense of humor (seriously)?
6. What are the applicant’s most salient strengths?
7. What are the applicant’s weaknesses? What efforts has the applicant made to address these areas?
8. What do you see the candidate doing and achieving in 10 years?
9. Do you have any additional comments that you think will assist the Admissions Committee in making its decision? If yes, please elaborate.

Cheers. +1

OK, the waiting period starts again....

I had my HUB interview today and even though - like all of you it seems - I was initially quite pleased with how it went, I am already starting to have some serious doubts

The interview was quite short (about 25 minutes) and the interviewer didn't actually ask me many questions. I was expecting the typical strengths/weaknesses/leadership experience/teamwork etc type of questions, but nada...

The questions were:

- Explain career progress.
- What do you do in your free time?
- Why mba?
- Why now?
- Why Wharton?
- What would you do outside of class (clubs, etc)?

And some questions to better understand the rationale behind my answers to the above questions. I asked her a few questions at the end, and then my time was over... (crazy how time flies when you're under stress!! Just wish the waiting period could pass as fast!! )

The interviewer was very professional and friendly. It was a nice/relaxed/straightforward interview. What worries me is that 1) I did not give examples of my leadership/teamwork experience (I was never asked and could not find an appropriate moment to mention them ); 2) it was quite short, so I couldn't address all the aspects of my application that I wanted to address; 3) the interviewer did not take any notes (was this the case for you guys?) so I'm worried some/most of the things I mentionned will be forgotten

Anyway, there's not much I can do about it now... The more I think about it, the more doubts I have. It's going to be a long month and it'll be hard to find the motivation to work on my R2 apps...

Good luck everyone!!!!