Summary: Questrom (B.U.) Class of 2017-2020 Discussions

Key Info about the Boston University Questrom MBA:

• Boston University offers 3 specialty programs: Public & Nonprofit (PN) MBA, Health Sector Management MBA (HSM) which are essentially industry-based concentrations for your MBA, as well as a MBA + Masters in Digital Innovation
• Students can start taking electives in the 1st quarter in the Year 1 to prepare them for their summer internships; they can also choose from 10 functional concentrations
• The program has a generous scholarship policy with 90% of class awarded scholarships and average awards equaling 50% of tuition
• Top 3 industries Class of 2015 entered were consulting (24%), pharma/biotech/health care (24%), and technology/science (19%)
• Questrom prioritizes a collaborative student culture and are looking for students looking to contribute to the program and their classmates

Program Highlights

• Offer 3 specialty programs: MBA + Masters in Digital Innovation, Public & Nonprofit (PN) MBA and Health Sector Management MBA (HSM)
• Concentrations: Energy & Environmental, Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Finance, International Management, Leadership & Organizational Transformation, Marketing, Operations & Technology, Management, Strategy & Innovation

Excerpts from Live Chat with BU Questrom Admission Director - Marisa Morgan

• Fit with BU: We have a fairly unique culture here of collaboration that we do look for students who show those qualities. We take seriously our mission of "creating value for the world" so want to see students who will be engaged not just with the academics here but also as active members of the community. And we also want to see how you might be as a team member. You’ll see some questions along those lines in the interview, and your recommenders will see them in their recommendations. Our students spend A LOT of time working on teams in the program, so we want to know that you will be someone that your classmates will want to work with!
  
• Interviews: Our interviews are really a chance to get to know you aside from what we see on paper. We want to see how you present yourself, learn more about your goals and why you might be a good fit for Questrom, and why we might be a good fit for you. We also use them to try to assess your leadership potential, and how the work that you’ve done might translate to our classroom.
  
• Recommendations: Recommendations definitely play an important role as one component of your application. We use recs to see what type of work you are doing/have done, what your potential for leadership might be, and what contributions you might make in the classroom. I absolutely recommend your recommendations be from people familiar with your work, rather than any academic recommendations. I also recommend that they actually are familiar with your work. It is far more important to us that the recommender knows you well rather than is someone "high up" in the company. We often have applicants whose recommendations don’t fit the standard profile. Students who own their own companies, for example.
  
• GPA: Your undergrad grades/GPA are a component of the application. We don’t really weigh any one component over another. So - a lower GPA with a stellar application otherwise won’t knock you out. But if it’s a concern, write something in an optional essay that tells us why we should be less concerned about it. And know that if it’s a combination of lower GPA and a low test score, that will be harder to overcome.
  
• Work Experience: More experience is never a disadvantage. With more experience comes more contribution to class discussion. Our 80% range is 2 to 8 years of experience, but we certainly have students who come in with more than 8 years. It is not very typical to see many students with less than 2 years.
  
• Mentioning Post MBA Goals in Essays: We want to see that you have an idea of what you want to do. You don’t need to know the exact role in the exact company. But have a sense of industry or role or both. I would also say to have an idea of some back up plans. Some roles/industries are really competitive and if you have your heart set on something and can’t see an alternative to get you where you want to ultimately be, it’s a harder sell. But...being completely open ended is not a good option. We sometimes see applicants who tell us that they’re not sure what they want to do so want an MBA to "figure it out".That’s not really the goal of business school. It’s only 2 years and you have to pack in a lot! That doesn’t mean that things can’t be flexible, but if you have absolutely no idea of industry or role, that’s not a great sign.
  
• Student Activities: We have an active student body with many clubs and organizations. It’s always great when our students want to play an active role in activities both in and out of the classroom. Many of our key programs have come from student ideas. Link Day, where local non-profits can get consulting help from our students (and where students can get real world consulting practice). Some of our international field seminars have developed from student led treks. The one that comes to mind is a new seminar in Israel looking at their startup and entrepreneurship culture. That started out of a non-credit trip that our Entrepreneurship Club members planned.
  
• Scholarships: About 91% of our incoming students receive some form of merit scholarship. That can be anywhere from $10,000 per year to a full tuition scholarship. Our average scholarship award is just over half of tuition. Merit scholarship decisions are given at the same time as admission decisions. Our merit scholarships do not require a separate application, we make those decisions during the admission process. They are merit based so we look at all aspects of your application, but pay particular attention to test scores, GPA, and work history during that process. GRE takers do have an equal chance at scholarship. We don’t prefer GMAT over GRE, so we don’t penalize GRE takers when it comes to scholarship. They tend to be looked at in comparison to the pool of applicants with GRE.
  
• BUild Lab: We have developed a new innovation center at BU. You can read the article here: https://www.bu.edu/today/2017/universit ... -students/ For those of you who might be considering entrepreneurship, this is an expansion of some current programs here including our BUzz Lab which is an accelerator for students looking to start their own business. This new initiative will expand that to capture resources from across the university, and will have some exciting partnerships with business and venture capital in the area.

Full chat transcript can be downloaded here



Interview with Dana Dubovik
Boston University Questrom MBA Admissions Interview with Dana Dubovik - Touch MBA.



INTERVIEWS

Interview Experience 1

Hello everybody who still prepares for an interview,
I am writing this post because there is not enough information about the bu mba interview out here and i had hard time finding out more about the process
So, this is my gift to all of you who still prep for the bu interview
It is a blind interview. This means that the person interviewing you has not read your application. Therefore, you can refer to all your stories from the essays ( it is actually better to do so if they are your best stories)
The interview was about 25 mins.

Here are my questions
1.Walk me through your resume
2.Tell me what you want to do and why is it important to you
3.Why do you think BU is the right school for you
4.How will you contribute to our learning environment
5.Tell me about a time when you had to adapt to a change
6.What did you learn about yourself from this particular situation
7.What is your leadership style. Give me an example when this style worked particularly well
8.What is your biggest accomplishment
9.Do you have any questions
10.A time I successfully implemented an innovation at one of my employers, and also asked for a time where being a team member, as opposed to being in the leadership role allowed me to accomplish more.

Interview Experience 2

Just had my interview in D.C. today, Oct 29. It went fairly well. Mostly standard questions. He was an admissions council member and he had not seen my application nor my resume when I sat down.

1) Give me a 3 minute overview of your resume starting from undergrad until now
2) Why MBA now?
3) Why BU SMG?
4) ST and LT Goals
5) Describe a time you had to be a team leader and what was your leadership style
6) Describe a time you had to react/adjust to change and what did you learn
7) Describe a time you had to take a risk
8) What is your proudest accomplishment (personal or professional)
9) What do you do in your free time
10) left some time for questions

Interview Experience 3

My interview was slightly under 30 minutes.

Intro questions:
1. Walk me through your resume.
2. Why BU? What about the program is appealing to you?
3. Explain the gap in your resume (applicant dependent).

Behavioral questions:
1. Tell me about a time you were innovative in the workplace.
2. Tell me about a time you took an unexpected leadership role.
3. Discuss a professional decision that did not work out in your favor and what you learned from it.
4. What do you like to do for fun and how do those activities help you in your professional life?

The rest of the time I asked questions about the program.
A) The questions you ask the interviewer are very important. They look forward to smart questions which show how interested you genuinely are in the program. My 3 questions were met with a lot of enthusiasm and highly interactive responses.
B) Response to Why Questrom is the one they look forward to the most.

Interview Experience 4

1.A brief introduction of the interview flow and application review process, then 30 mins interview.
2. 4-5 mins of your WE. Since I have 10 yr+ WE, so not the general 1 min work thru your resume.
3.Leadership
4.Teamwork
5.Why now, Why Questrom, Why MBA
6.Big achievement

As a re-applicant:
I think the most important thing is to show how you have improved in the previous year since last application.
Fully understand that people cannot have significant improvement in a year or in several months, but we still need to emphasize such points - those can be illustrate in your re-applicant essay. Eg standard score improvement (my GMAT, from 680 to 710), any promotion in your work (I didn't have any promotion but indicated a few honors and achievement awarded). If your essay impresses the ad officer who reviews your essay, you may get the opportunity to have an interview.

That's all my experience. I scored my interview 80/100, not that perfect but I'm satisfied with the result.

Interview Experience 5

I have completed my first ever MBA interview for Questrom.
A tip to the future interviewers -> I would not categorise it as an interview but rather a conversation. You should not forget that fact that its a blind interview and that it is only about half an hour long. So don't tell a sob story but rather say things succinctly.

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.ST and LT goals ?
5.What if your ST goals don't work out ?
6.Collaboration story ?
7.What are your greatest strengths?
8.What are your greatest weaknesses?
9.Failure story ?
10.Resume specific question (CRAM that baby up... Make sure you know what you wrote on the resume and can explain it well... I got quite a few of these)

Interview Experience 6

congratulations for the interview invite!! My interview (25 mins in length) was fairly straightforward. The questions were:

• Introduce yourself in less than 2 minutes.
• Why MBA?
• Short term and long term goals
• Why BU Questrom?
• Leadership experience
• Failure story
• Greatest achievement at workplace
• Do you have any questions for us?

Please be calm and confident and show enthusiasm with proper voice modulation. Please be prepared for every question but take care that you do not sound rehearsed. You just need to convince them that you need an MBA specifically from Questrom school of Business and show a good clarity of goals. Please feel to reach out to me for any further queries or assistance.


Other Queries:

Can Someone throw some light on Video essays. The intro said that one question is common to all applicant. I would appreciate any insight.
The common one is "why choosing BU to pursue an MBA?"


What is avg requirement of gmat and toefl for international students?

Average GMAT is 682. Your score should be in the range of 620-730.
As far as TOEFL is concerned, candidates who have earned or will have completed at least two years of a bachelor’s or master’s degree at an institution in which the language of instruction was solely based in English are eligible for an automatic TOEFL/IELTS/PTE waiver. Additionally, candidates who have or will have worked for at least two years in a full-time, post bachelor's degree position in the US are eligible for an automatic waiver. However, if you do not meet this criterion but would like to be considered for a waiver, you can submit a written request highlighting your experience with and proficiency in the English language to mba@bu.edu prior to the submission of your application.