Stanford GSB Hub

Interview lasted around 1 hour and 25 mins (schedule for 1 hour). Took place in the Alum’s office in London. I didn’t get the walk me through your resume/ tell me about yourself question. We just chit chatted about where in Italy I’m from since the alum is also Italian. Before he dove into questions, he told me what to expect: he told me he’d interrupt me because he knows what he’s looking for so if I were going in the wrong direction or if he already got what he wanted he’d move to the next question. Here are the questions he asked: – Tell me about a time you spotted an opportunity/problem. – Tell me about a time you had an obstacle/challenge and how you solved it – Tell me about a time you had to got the support of others to get something done? – Tell me about a time you helped someone develop a skill. – Why GSB? For each question he asked a few follow up questions. The latter half of the interview was spent with him answering my questions about his career to date, his experience at the GSB and giving me life/MBA advice – sharing peals of wisdom I’ll take with me regardless of the outcome of my application. I was actually surprised by how enjoyable the interview was. It very much felt like a conversation and the alum was genuinely interested in getting to know me and did everything to put me at ease. The whole experience just reinforced for me how special the GSB is.

Alum was a very senior exec. Relaxed, conversational interview, lasted just over an hour. About 30 minutes of behavioral questions followed by 30 minutes of more open chatting. No “tell me about yourself,” “why MBA,” or “why Stanford” questions, just three TMATs that we dug into a bit more detail on. Had a great time. The three TMAT questions were: 1. TMAT you accomplished something you were really proud of. 2. TMAT you went above and beyond. 3. TMAT you helped someone else develop their skill set. These were actually the only “planned” questions for me. All of the others stemmed from the answers I gave and branched out naturally from each story.

The interview took place in the alum’s office. I turned up at the office 15 mins before: we started the interview early and finished 20 mins after the allotted hour. I didn’t get the walk me through your resume/ tell me about yourself question. We just chit chatted about where in Italy I’m from since the alum is also Italian. He told me about what to expect; he told me he’d interrupt me because he knows what he’s looking for so if I were going in the wrong direction or if he already got what he wanted he’d move to the next question. Here are the questions he asked: - Tell me about a time you spotted an opportunity/problem? - Tell me about a time you had an obstacle/challenge and how you solved it - Tell me about a time you had to got the support of others to get something done? - Tell me about a time you helped someone grow, develop a skill? - Why GSB? For each question he asked a few follow up questions. The latter half of the interview was spent with him answering my questions about his career to date, his experience at the GSB etc.

I think it went super well — almost 3 hours long, but very casual vibe. We had very similar interests / backgrounds. Wonderful person, really enjoyed talking to them. My pre-GSB career plan is different than theirs, but my post-GSB plans are very close to the sort of work that they do now (a very small space), so a lot of our convo after the main questions was just back and forth about that. Main questions: 1) a time when you’ve gone above and beyond 2) something you’re proud of 3) a time you’ve engaged others (basically leadership) 4) a time you’ve developed/mentored others The rest was just sort of chatting back and forth. Really enjoyed the conversation and learned a lot about GSB.

Interview lasted about 35mins. Interview was very pleasant and I really enjoyed the conversation with the (adcom) interviewer. For context, I am looking to pivot from semiconductor manufacturing into cleantech industry. I might be missing couple of questions in the list below. 1) How did you get to know about Stanford MSx program? 2) What specifically did you like about the MSx program? 3) Why is this the right time for you to pursue Stanford MSx program? 4) Why do you want to give up your well-established career/job and pursue a new path? 5) Are you open to working in larger organizations post MSx? (My short-term goal is to work in a cleantech startup) 6) Where do you plan to work geographically post MSx? Do you have a geography preference post MSx? 7) Tell me some of the challenges in your industry/company? 8) Describe your org structure and how you and your role fits in the org? 9) How many people do you have reporting to you? Are they all direct reports or do you have people managers reporting to you? 10) Tell me about your experience with a challenging situation? 11) How would you show up to a group study? 12) How do you plan to contribute to the MSx community? 13) How would you introduce yourself in 30 seconds to your future class? 14) Do you have any doubts or concerns about the MSx program?

Honestly, I had such a wonderful interview experience-- I'd argue that was the best interview experience I've had, and I interviewed with 5 other schools. It was such a warm conversation and he asked follow-up questions about topics I wasn't expecting him to (like he asked me how my mom is doing after I told him a story about my family). I have a consulting background and he as previously a partner for a competitor consulting firm so when he asked about my work experience, he was pretty targeted with the follow up questions. For example, he asked something specific about the workstreams that I managed that I knew he could only ask because he understands how case teams are set up. I wouldn't say the follow up questions are hard; it's just stuff you would know how to answer if what you're saying is true. For the follow up questions we had an in-depth conversation about some formative life experiences he had at GSB, so he seemed super willing to open up about himself as well. Here are the questions I can remember him asking me: What is your proudest accomplishment? (this is where I spoke about my family) Tell me about a time when you developed someone or a team. Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond. Tell me about an obstacle in your professional life and how you overcame it. Tell me about a time when you were effective. Why do you want to go to Stanford? Tell me about a time you developed a business insight and how it changed the course of your project.

Tell me about a time where you did something you're proud of? Tell me about a time you saw a challenge or problem and addressed it? Tell me about a time you taught someone something new or a skill? Why MBA / Stanford? Why are you interested in this specific industry?

Why MBA Why GSB A time when I had to solve a roadblock to get to something A time when I had to get resources (money, HR, time, anything) for something A time when I improved a team's culture A time when I saw prevented something bad from happening through foresight

1. Why MSx program and why now 2. Most challenging situation 3. self-intro to the class 4. A time when the team did not perform well 5. Biggest accomplishment 6. Questions about my company's offering and history 7. You applied to MBA and MSx together, what were your throughs? 8. Challenges in your industry

1. Why Mba? 2. Tell me about a time you dealt with a difficult team member? 3. Tell me about a time you build something from scratch? 4. Tell me about your proudest achievement 5. What do you want to do post MBA?

The interview started off with a discussion of my undergrad experience since the interviewer and I shared the same undergraduate school. Then it followed the typical interview route: 1. Walk me through your resume. 2. Why MBA? Why Stanford? 3. What is your long term goal? What is your motivation behind it? Three behavioral questions: 4. Describe an experience where you failed. 5. What is your proudest achievement? 6. Describe an experience where you contributed to a team effort (not as a leader). The interview was conversational and lasted for about 50 minutes including time for any questions that I had. The interviewer asked only the three behavioral questions mentioned above but tried digging deep into the responses with follow-up questions.

1. Tell me about yourself 2. What are you most proud of? (Some specific follow ups here) 3. Tell me a time you received an insight and how it changed the way you and the team progressed 4. What is a time you had to convince someone in a group? (Digging in with follow up questions around the events) 5. When have you failed? 6. When did you change the culture of a team? 7. Tell me about a time you have persuaded someone to give you resources (beyond the norm) 8. Why MBA? 9. Why GSB? 10. Questions for me.

Hi, My interview lasted about 45 minutes. The interview is conversational in nature. The questions are focused on understanding you as a candidate and there are no right answers. At the end, there is an opportunity to ask the interviewer questions yourself. Some sample questions are below: What is your goal? How can Stanford MSX help you? What are your strengths/weaknesses? What advice would you give to a new leader? What leadership traits do you admire? etc. I hope this helps.

Interviewer was just 1-2 mins late to the video call. Started really informally with talking about our days for 3 minutes. Alum interviewer and I were from the same state and region in the US. Questions asked to me in 30 minutes: - Why MBA / Why GSB - Time I showed results - Time I managed different types of stakeholders - Why I moved from [first job] to [current job] - Time I dealt with conflict - Time I made a mistake, as a manager - What questions I ask to people I interview, as a manager - What I want to do after GSB Then I asked questions for 10 minutes: - What interviewer wished they would have done differently about their GSB experience - How they felt about moving to GSB given being from [specific state] We finished in exactly 45 minutes and I thought it went really well since it was so conversational. But the next day or two, upon reflection, I realized I did a really poor job of giving a variety of examples. I mostly focused on my current job and not my first job or outside of work activities, which I should have done. But, it was my first interview so the next interviews I had were much better since I purposefully figured out how to squeeze in related info from undergrad, first job, or upbringing.

I had my Skype interview with an alum who lives in the same country. The interview was very informal, the alum mentioned that so far there was no big correlation between what feedback he gave to the AdCom and how the outcome of the admission process was, "therefore let's just have a nice conversation". The interviewer went through the list of 8-10 typical questions "tell me about a time you... contributed intellectually to a project; suggested something innovative; worked in a team; dealt with disagreement; asked about my career vision and followed up on some topics mentioned in my CV like extracurriculars and hobbies. The interviewer allocated enough time for my questions and answered them very honestly. Overall, it was a very enjoyable experience, which gave Stanford several points in my mind comparing to HBS.

Hello all, just had my interview. The interviewer was lovely, very conversational and informal. Also very transparent. Now we wait until March 28 - seems like forever. Also one thing we discussed was the brand of MSx vs an MBA and I am a bit concerned about this. Not sure what you guys feel. I only spent 3 weeks (consulting doesn't allow for much) for my test prep and just applied to HBS, MIT and Stanford. I really should have done more research on the MIT programme. As someone already pointed out, their Sloan Fellows programme actually confers an MBA degree - I think that's a huge plus. But I didn't apply to their Sloan Fellows programme and regretting this now. Having said that - Stanford is more of a fit for me in terms of personality, career aspirations and the general ethos of the school. They said they are not thinking about branding the MSx as an MBA anytime soon.... So anyone coming in needs to be well aware of this.

Interview debrief for Stanford MSx To add, the interviewer in my case took specific areas in my statement and asked me to describe in detail the insights I gained. The interviewer also asked me to put myself in the shoes of senior management in my organization, and what I would do in that situation. I also prepared in advance three questions to ask about the program; the interviewer would usually end off by inviting you to ask questions- it is helpful to have some on hand!

Interview debrief fro Stanford MSx I thought I should share some tips for those who will soon have their interviews: This interview was a lot more straightforward than I had expected. The interviewer knew everything about my application, had a list of questions prepared beforehand, and tried to cover all of them within 30 minutes. I got around 14 questions covering past experience, post-graduation goals, what I want to get out of Stanford, etc. She also asked some tough questions about my firm and its strategic direction. What was very clear to me during the interview was that they cared a lot about what you want to do after graduation and how Stanford MSx would help you.

I had my interview yesterday and it was one of the better interviews I've had so far. I'm sharing my experience here and will be keeping it brief, however, if you have any queries I'm available on PM to assist. My interview was initially scheduled earlier last week, and then after being re-scheduled a couple of times finally took place yesterday. It was with an alumnus from Mumbai in a coffee shop and lasted for about 1 hour and 30 minutes. Following are some of the questions I can recall 1.Can you explain what you do in your daily work? (Resume walk-through) 2.What would your subordinates say is your leadership style? 3. How do you show leadership at work? Is Leadership and Management the same? (Behavior analysis.. I aced this one I bet..) 4. As part of company X, tell me a time when you were part of a team that did not perform well, how did you contribute... 5.How do you work with people from different cultures? 6. What do your co-workers say is your weakness? 7.How have you overcome this weakness? 8. Why would you choose our school’s MBA program? etc. etc. My interviewer was from a somewhat similar background to mine but had much less upstream experience and more downstream and mid-stream experience.. So once the grilling was done he was genuinely interested to learn much more about upstream services and hydraulic fracturing(my domain of expertise).. we spoke about lot of things from energy sufficiency for india and how i envision the future of shale oil/gas and EOR etc. etc... All in all a pretty good one, wrapped up with him asking me to catch up for another informal meeting sometime soon and that I was headed down the right track in going to Stanford, told me about the energy research institute at Stanford and how i can leverage my functional knowledge too along with business skills gained through an MBA.