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Blast from the Past: Interview debriefs of previous Stanford applicants



devilbart
Hi all,

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...


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Blast from the Past: Interview debriefs of previous Stanford applicants



gotti
Just finished my interview... Left feeling quite good, and of course now questioning everything.

I may not have been as clean as I would have been typing out my answers, but I felt like I told my stories effectively.

I was a bit surprised that the interviewer didn't ask any of the typical questions like "why Stanford?", "why mba?", "walk me through your resume/introduce yourself".

The interview lasted 55 minutes and only consisted of 4 questions, each with a series of follow-up questions to understand the details of the story.

Tell me about a time you felt effective?
Tell me about another example?
Who is your mentor at work?
Tell me about a time where you worked with a difficult colleague?

The interview was almost too relaxed, may have led to me getting a little bit sloppy on a couple of anecdotes. Also at the end I asked a few questions about my career and for one of them he answered "if you do end up at a top business school that shouldn't be a problem" which wasn't overly reassuring. I may be over-reading it though.

Now the waiting game... Good luck to everyone else!

gotti
Congrats to all who got interviews in the last 24 hours! If you have already done a HBS interview make sure you do a few mocks for GSB as the interview is so drastically different.


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Had my interview about 12h ago.

Generally a very nice, positive experience. Was at the office of an alum. Got a couple of behavioural questions and then it kind of developed from there. Was asked a lot of probing questions for each of the 3-4 main questions (i.e., how did you feel in this particular situation, what did you do then, go into more detail here, etc.). Then at the end a quick why MBA, why GSB section and lots of time for me to learn more about his experience. All in all almost 1.5h.

Happy to chat if anyone still has an interview coming up!
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jole101
Had my interview about 12h ago.

Generally a very nice, positive experience. Was at the office of an alum. Got a couple of behavioural questions and then it kind of developed from there. Was asked a lot of probing questions for each of the 3-4 main questions (i.e., how did you feel in this particular situation, what did you do then, go into more detail here, etc.). Then at the end a quick why MBA, why GSB section and lots of time for me to learn more about his experience. All in all almost 1.5h.

Happy to chat if anyone still has an interview coming up!

Glad to hear it went well!! :)


Sent from my iPhone using GMAT Club Forum mobile app
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Had a positive but somewhat strange interview experience. The interviewer was friendly but didn't take any notes whatsoever. Was a bit surprised given I've heard Stanford likes detailed anecdotes from interviews. In the end she said something along the lines of "Stanford is really hard to get into and the interview is only one part of all the things that are considered". Not sure what to make of that.
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Had a positive but somewhat strange interview experience. The interviewer was friendly but didn't take any notes whatsoever. Was a bit surprised given I've heard Stanford likes detailed anecdotes from interviews. In the end she said something along the lines of "Stanford is really hard to get into and the interview is only one part of all the things that are considered". Not sure what to make of that.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

My interviewer also said sth along the lines of "you can interview great and not get in, you can interview not so great and get in - it's just one additional data point". It somewhat feels like they are instructed to keep expectations of applicants low which makes a lot of sense considering the pressure all of us already put on ourselves.

In 3 weeks and 1 day we will know :)
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I agree with the take below -- it really it just one additional data point and they probably are hoping to just set expectations overall (because they literally have no idea what the adcom will decide about you). Best of luck!

jole101
BigTuna
Had a positive but somewhat strange interview experience. The interviewer was friendly but didn't take any notes whatsoever. Was a bit surprised given I've heard Stanford likes detailed anecdotes from interviews. In the end she said something along the lines of "Stanford is really hard to get into and the interview is only one part of all the things that are considered". Not sure what to make of that.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

My interviewer also said sth along the lines of "you can interview great and not get in, you can interview not so great and get in - it's just one additional data point". It somewhat feels like they are instructed to keep expectations of applicants low which makes a lot of sense considering the pressure all of us already put on ourselves.

In 3 weeks and 1 day we will know :)
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Waiting for the decision can be exhausting. It has been pretty difficult to concentrate at work. The final decision out in 3weeks. Hoping for an admit.
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profbiodun
Waiting for the decision can be exhausting. It has been pretty difficult to concentrate at work. The final decision out in 3weeks. Hoping for an admit.

Agreed - hard to concentrate these days!

Went back into last years thread and saw that some calls came in 2 days before the deadline. Making me even more nervous.

Also still wondering whether there will be any calls this year considering Derrick Bolton's change of role. On the other hand they did ask for telephone numbers for the first two weeks of Dec so it seems likely that they will continue this practice.

Fingers crossed everyone!
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Since we still have over 2 weeks until decisions (and because this thread is so dead), maybe we can share some insights of our R1 applications to those waiting for R2 or R3. What did you do to prepare for WMM? Why did you choose to Stanford over other schools (besides the obvious prestige, etc.)?

I'm also curious to know what others may be doing during the wait.
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Narenn

Stanford - Admission Trends!


Hi Everyone, Here is our analysis of admission trends and acceptance chances at Stanford based on our accumulated forum data of applicants. We have analysed our forum data of Stanford applicants from 2012 to 2016 to determine acceptance chances by GMAT score, admission rounds, industry, age, country, etc.

The data used for this analysis is self-reported, so it's advised to use findings of this analysis with discretion. They are meant to give only a general idea of admission scenario at Stanford. Don't presume that these findings will hold true all the time.

We would welcome any comments, opinions, suggestions or anything else that you might have to say about the findings of this analysis.


YOY Acceptance Rate and Avg GMAT of Applicants



Sample Size: 2754 Applicants



Acceptance Rate by GMAT Score



  • Stanford GSB is arguably the best business school in the world. The intensity of competition at its flagship two year, full time, MBA program can be clearly seen in the following chart.
  • Admission rate of Stanford is lowest compared to that of other top schools that we analysed so far; Even with 760 GMAT, your chance of acceptance is only 9%.
  • Among the 1383 applicants that we considered for this chart, around 90% had GMAT score of 700 or above and 75% had GMAT score of 720 or above. This finding tells us that those with lower than 700 GMAT need to have strong profile and convincing story for applying to Stanford.
  • Narrow gap between lines showing interview invites and acceptance indicate that Stanford is very careful in selecting candidates for interview' This leads us to infer that one can have better chance of acceptance after interview. This may seem obvious but we have seen certain schools who are very generous in inviting candidates for interview, but selective in making final decisions. (See Tuck, Columbia, Fuqua)
  • When we dug deeper into the data, we found that 41% of interviewed candidates got acceptance from Stanford.

Sample Size: 1383 Applicants





Acceptance Rate by Admission Round



Sample Size: 2753 Applicants

  • This is another interesting observation. Acceptance rate is roughly the same in all admission rounds.





Acceptance Rates of Applicants in Different Age Groups



Sample Size: 1009 Applicants





Acceptance rates of applicants from various industries



  • The first chart - line chart - shows acceptance rates of applicants from various industries and the pie chart next to it shows industry-wise allocation of applicants.

Sample Size: 1199 Applicants







Acceptance Rates of Applicants from Various Regions



Sample Size: 942 Applicants



As I said earlier, we welcome your views, counter-views, suggestions, etc on the analysis. Thank you!

Can you separate the Middle East from Africa? MEA is a huge region!
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Hello TooLong150,

Thanks for the reminding us that Stanford is very competitive. I am however sure that every applicant is very optimistic about his/er submitted application.

All,

With less than a week to the decision day, we should not only get ready to celebrate but also brace up for negative result that can come your way. it doesn't mean you haven't put up your best and its not that your best is not the best. Just know that there will be candidates with a less impressive stat/profile than yours but will get admitted.

In the spirit of motivating myself and other, lets get ready for the best result ( which is to get the Famous "Derrick Call") and expect the worst (which is a ding) or better placed as waitlisted.

Regards
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Hi! Quick query - is anybody aware of Stanford's calling pattern?

Whether they call admitted applicants a day before or on the decision day?

And do they start from Asia?

If anybody has any knowledge from the stats of previous years - it would be very helpful.

Thank you!


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Last year they had called an acquaintance of mine a day before. Don't know whether the calls start East to West. Hope it helps! :-)
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'tis the week :)

Good luck everyone. Already feeling anxious... The GSB is my absolute top choice!
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:(
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BigTuna
'tis the week :)

Good luck everyone. Already feeling anxious... The GSB is my absolute top choice!

Now we will know VERY SOON!

So excited and so nervous.. GOOD LUCK to all :) :)
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MiZlaN
BigTuna
'tis the week :)

Good luck everyone. Already feeling anxious... The GSB is my absolute top choice!

Now we will know VERY SOON!

So excited and so nervous.. GOOD LUCK to all :) :)

Got a spam call from a California number earlier today, about had a heart attack
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