Sauder (UBC)

"I was interviewed by Daniela Aries. It was a zoom interview. Duration - 45 mins. UBC uses third-party HR folks for interviews. 1. Tell me something not included in the CV 2. Why Sauders? 3. Short & Long Term Goal 4. Examples of EDI 5. Ethical Dilemma 6. Someone who did not work in your team how did you handle it? After the answer gave a follow-up, what if a person is not at all interested in your team what would you do? 7. Manager feedback, how did you work on it? 8. Example of a good leader. 9. How would you contribute to the Sauder’s Community? 10. Why Vancouver? I received the final decision in a week, which was a Ding. IMO I felt the interview went really well and she even suggested at the end to connect with her on LI and speak to her for jobs once I am in BC. Maybe I was too prepared or something."

"My questions were 1. Walk me through your resume 2. Why Sauder 3. Why now 4. How I work in teams 5. My achievements in life 6. My favourite book"

"Interviewer: Aaron Duration: 45 mins Mode: Zoom call Questions: (not in sequence) 1. Why MBA? 2. Why Now? 3. Why Sauder? 4. Biggest challenge you expect to face during MBA? 5. 3 Qualities your colleagues will use to describe you? Which one would you agree and disagree with? 6. How can you enrich the class? 7. What kind of alum will you be? 8. Short term & long term goal and link your career with it. 9. What is the one question you would want me to ask you? 10. Community involvement? Experience: It was more like a casual conversation. We cracked some jokes too. Suggestions: - Be yourself - Research on the school well (Make him believe that you came on planet earth for Sauder.) - Know what you are saying. Feel it. Copied statements and superficial language wont help. - Though the questions are common, I found this interview way more challenging than the interview of some MUCH better ranked schools. My impression about school: It gave me an impression that Sauder is really serious about who should be in its class and I believe that it is a great thing. Your essays, video response, recommendations and work-ex, will come together here. Make sure that a logical connection is visible in all of them. Work really hard with your recommenders. I have a relatively low GMAT score. I could identify 3 moments when the interviewer tried to figure out about my quant skills in other ways. Although the question was not asked specifically but by end of the interview he knew the extent of quant exposure in my current work profile. So unlike some of the reputed B-schools, they value your individuality. Makes me more confident about my choice. Hope this helps. Wishing Goodluck to all the applicants."

"After rescheduling thrice (the school portal was down for a few days), I managed to get an interview with Ms Vivian Tran. These are the questions I can recall (not necessarily in order): Questions on resume. ( I had some gaps in my cv). Why Sauder? Why now? What roles/industries are you looking at in the short/long term? Why those? Would you be willing to work in cities apart from Vancouver? (This was a segue from my previous answer. The companies I mentioned were Vancouver based) What other schools did you apply to? Where are they located? (Not sure why that last part was relevant) What qualities were you looking for in a school when you decided on which ones to apply to? Questions about my low GPA. (My GRE scores were good so the difference must have raised eyebrows. I was working throughout my degree and struggling with a bunch of personal issues so this was easy to explain. My academic performance before and after was always above average.) What qualities would your friends use to describe you? Which of those is least truthful? ( I countered by saying I wouldn't have mentioned any that were untrue but could choose one I'd most likely compromise on if forced to) Is there anything on the academic front that you think might be a challenge during the MBA? (I mentioned probability/permutations. As an ex navigational officer with a degree in nautical science, math doesn't faze me but some subjects are new given my background. I quickly followed up my mentioning some extra courses I took on Coursera/Udemy) What would you say is your biggest weakness? (Mention how you are addressing it) What is the most important piece of advice you ever got? What do you hope to learn from your cohort? What do you bring to the table? How would you contribute to the school network after the MBA? What do you do to take care of your mental health? (Thank the pandemic for this one) Anything you'd like the adcom to know but isn't mentioned in your CV? Any questions for me? (I had a few) Vivian was lovely to talk to and I enjoyed our conversation. The 60 minutes went by in a blur. It helped that I'd seen her before in webinars hosted by the school. She did take a LOT of notes while we spoke. That's either a good thing or very bad. I suppose time will tell. General advice: Come prepared. Know the finer details of the program and in particular why they speak to YOU specifically. Specifics are important. I would recommend going for a couple of mock interviews if possible. I recorded myself answering the most common questions and went through those videos ruthlessly. You are a human being with strengths and weaknesses. They know this. You are expected to know the same. Show them that you see where you need to improve and demonstrate what you've done/are doing to address your faults. Above all, relax, this isn't an inquisition. That fact that you scored an interview shows that they are interested. All you need to do is give them further evidence of your intent and fit. Good luck. EDIT: Well, I have to admit this rejection came as a bit of a shock. I wish there was a way of eliciting some feedback from the school. At the very least it would help in deciding if reapplying makes sense. In any event, hope the debrief helps someone."

"My interview was taken by Sanjay Behal. Following were the questions asked: 1- What are you most excited about at Sauder and why MBA? 2- Why Sauder? 3- Short term goals? 4- Long term goals? 5- How MBA and short term goals would help you in reaching to your long term goals? (Many cross questions were asked) 6- Tell me about a time you had a conflict with your manager? How did you handle it? 7- What misconception your co-workers would have about you? 8- What other schools have you applied to? What would be your first choice? The interview lasted for 23min. His ending comments very positive. I was surprised to get the denial. Fate I guess! Good luck to everyone."

"I chose to do interview through Skype since I live in Montreal. I received the interview invitation after 2 weeks I submitted my application. I would say pretty fast. I googled the interviewer, he is like a third party consultant for the school, more like a headhunter. Questions are very much like a job interview: Basic question: why Sauder? What can you bring to the class? What do you want to learn from the class? What do you want to improve? What is your long term goal? Other questions are mostly based on my work experience: what situation you had that you need to resolve conflicts? What misconception your co-workers had about you and how did you eliminate that? It is only 30 mins, mostly he asks questions and then I answered. At the end, he asked if I have anything to share with him? I basically just wanted to ask him questions, but he doesn't really have answers and I understand because he is not really employee of Sauder. One thing is that he started to connect with me from Skype to confirm if I am the right contact for interview 30 mins before scheduled time. Then he asked me if I am ready, we could start earlier rather than waiting for 30 mins and I agreed with him. He didn't really say when you can get an result at the end though, I was trying to ask, but knowing that he is only hired for interview, I would assume he is not familiar on that either. Good luck to everyone."

"Hello All, Finished with my Skype interview on the 13th of December with Liz Starbuck Greer. Unfortunately, the video had to be cut off view broadband issues and we continued the call over 'voice only'. Looking forward to the decision :) 13th December 18 Time - ~45 minutes via Skype Went not too bad but nothing spectacular as well Questions asked - same as those in the debrief mentioned by aquaria. For any other queries please feel free to PM me. Best Regards and Good luck to all."

"I had an interview today with Kevin Ly. Here are some questions he asked. - What do you think your strengths are? - What are things that other people do not know about you and you wish to share with admission board?? - What are you going to do with the MBA degree? Give specific professional goals - If there is a book about your life, what the main lesson that you wish to learn from the book? And what is the name of the book you want it to be? - What do you wish to learn/get from this program?"

"Just did my interview via Skype with someone named Liz. Apparently she does Skype interviews exclusively, so international applicants may get her as well. If you're doing your interview on-campus, it will probably be with the other admissions people. These were the questions I could remember off the top of my head (YMMV): 1) Why a UBC MBA at this point in your career 2) Thing you're looking forward to the most in the program 3) Short term/long term career goals + what do you plan to do with your MBA 4) Greatest achievement and biggest mistake (preferably professional) 5) A few situational questions: - What if you were working in a group of 5 people, and there is one person who is clearly not pulling their weight (submitting shoddy work, or submitting work late). How would you deal with that? - Suppose everyone is putting in their effort now, but someone in your group has a very different opinion on how a certain business problem should be solved. What do you do? 6) Questions for the interviewer? Overall it was pretty straightforward, and interview lasted around 30 mins. I asked about current turnaround time and she said 3 weeks, which is expected considering it's that time of the year."