The MIT adcom I interviewed with was extremely friendly and loved to talk. 🙂 The interview lasted about 45 minutes and was very conversational.
Started off with her reading my transcripts and mentioning, “Oh, you went to [this] high school?” Didn’t realize that was on my transcripts! “Why did you go to [this university] for one summer session?”
Then came the *behavioral* portion of the interview. During our chat, the bells rang loud and clear that she knew my application very well. Often when I said something about my background or experience she would reinforce it with, “Oh yes! I remember you mentioning [blah] on your app!” Of course I tried to come up with other examples for the questions asked below.
- “Tell me about a project at work that you co-managed… How did you feel?… What would you say the impact was to the client?… How did they react?”
- “Tell me about a project at work within the last year that you’re proud of… What did you specifically learn from it?”
- “What’s a personal goal you’ve set for yourself within the last 2 years?”
- “Why Sloan?”
- “I read about [this] in your app and loved the story behind it. Can you tell me more about it?… How did the members feel about that?… Why did you fail at that point?… How do you feel about the outcome?”
- “Why do you want to go to the east coast?… Are you sure you wouldn’t mind moving east?” (I live in California.)
Remember: Be yourself. They know your app, so they want to reaffirm: 1) who you’ve displayed yourself to be on your app, 2) your reasons for “why Sloan,” and 3) your personality and your fit for Sloan. The easiest way is to treat the adcom like your peer. Imagine you’re working on a team project and the Sloan adcom is a team member. How would you interact with your team member? Show this.
