The interviewer was a second year student and her business card states that she was a member of the admissions committee. First of all, she explained the purpose of the interview was to help the school to know more about me, as well as an opportunity for me to get to know more about the program. She also briefly introduced her background, an investment banker at Goldman.
As usual, she asked me to go through my resume, and then why mba. I guess I gave very specific answers to that question, eg improve my teamwork skills in a team environment, acquire specific knowledge by taking such such classes, get involved by joining particular clubs, so she didn’t ask me the why wharton question. After than she asked me how I can contribute to the program and how I would handle team conflict. The last question was what concern that I believe the admissions committee might have, my answer was my age, one possible concern for younger applicants is that they are not as focused as their older counterparts, therefore once at wharton, a place full of resources and opportunities, they might got lost and accomplish nothing if with no clear career objective, as for me, I said I always have a clear goal of what to accomplish, I chose go back to school to develop a sound implementable business plan, build a team of accomplished individuals with entrepreneurial instincts, receive the training and knowledge required to execute the plan, and of course have the brand name effect on my resume to attract investors.
In the Q&A section, I asked her what factors encouraged her to join wharton 2 years ago, and then we started to talk about some irrelevant topics.
Overall, the interview was like a conversation and I didn’t use a script that I prepared earlier. My strategy was to focus on my uniqueness as someone who has the small business background, and can contribute to class discussions especially in those entrepreneurial classes.
