I had my interview with UCLA last Saturday and I thought I would share my experience with the gmatclub crowd hoping that someone will get something useful out of it. So for those of you who don't know UCLA's interview is optional, I took it because my stats are not particularly AMAZING and I think I interview pretty well anyway.
My interview was in the afternoon but I came to the school at 8:00 am to go to an info session with my wife because I wanted her to see what the school was about. As we were sitting in the waiting room with other perspective students who were interviewing early the admissions director came by and told people who had already gone to an info sessions to not bother coming because it would be redundant and to come by at 9:00 am to go for a tour of the facility. Since I had already been to an info session and my wife did not care to see an info session that much we decided to not go. As we walk out my wife revealed to me that she looked over and saw a guy filling out one of his interview cards and noticed that his GPA was a 3.6 and GMAT score was a 760. I kind of freaked out, since my stats are no where close to that (3.0, 670) and was very discouraged before the interview, my wife was pissed at herself but tried to console me telling me not to focus on grades and GMAT scores only.
Long story short when I went on the tour at 9 the guy that my wife pointed out was straight out of his undergraduate, he had ZERO work experience and I realized I was freaking out for nothing. Everyone has there strengths and everyone has there weaknesses. My undergraduate GPA in chemistry was low and my GMAT also is relatively low but I believe I have solid work experience and I know what I want to do with my MBA. That was an amazing thing to realize before the interview and it definately put a lot of things into perspective at the right time.
The interview was a little different than I expected. For one the interviewer was very nice and also very good. Never in the interview did I feel uncomfortable but also never did I know what he thought of me, both signs of a great interviewer. The questions were mostly situational. Ethical questions, describe a difficult time, how would you sell something, etc. and then there were the standard why an MBA from Anderson etc. But I have to say the most important thing about preparation for this interview is to know your reasons why you are going and everything else will fall into place. I can't tell you how I did but I feel I did well, and I tend to be a very self-critical person.