Our archive of over 2,000 MBA admissions interview questions includes self-reported accounts from applicants. Please use the dropdown menu to view filter reports by school.
Had an interview recently? Please submit your MBA admissions interview report!
Published: December 19, 2010
UCLA / Anderson MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Alum / Off-Campus
I interviewed in late November with a UCLA alum who had graduated in 2008. The interview took place in the alum’s office conference room. His assistant hadn’t told the front desk to expect me and he was a little late, so I saw this all as kind of a shaky start. Interview questions: Tell me about yourself Walk me through your career/resume Why are you interested in business school Why now? Why UCLA? What would you contribute to UCLA? He also gave me time to ask any questions. He was very particular about not exceeding 1/2 an hour. Other than
Read more
Published: December 13, 2010
Columbia MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Regular Decision / Alum / Off-Campus
I scheduled the interview with an alum in my hometown. It was held in his home at the dining room table, which created a very relaxed atmosphere. He started the interview itself by saying that the format was very informal. He took notes while we talked but maintained good eye contact. Questions: Tell me a bit about what you do and how you ended up at your current job? (i.e. walk me through your resume) Why the MBA? Why do you want to leave your current job? (he previously worked for the same consulting firm as I do) Why Columbia?
Read more
Had an interview recently?
Want to share your interview experience with other applicants? Fill out this brief form and we’ll post your report to our Interview Archive.
Submit an Interview Report
Published: December 13, 2010
Harvard MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / On-campus / Adcom / Admitted
This site was really useful for me while prepping for the HBS interview, so I wanted to share my experience: 5 mins after being sent the online link, all of the slots on the two or three latest interview days available were already completely booked – so if for whatever reason you need maximum time between the interview notification and interview date, make sure you have a fast connection and fast fingers. I signed up for a class visit the day before my interview. I wasn’t ultimately asked about it, but I think it was helpful to see the case
Read more
Published: December 12, 2010
Berkeley / Haas MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Alum / Off-Campus
I completed my interview a few days ago. The questions were pretty standard – why MBA, why now, why Berkeley, post-MBA goals. In the beginning we talked about my background from the perspective of the decisions I took in my life – how I chose the university, my first and second jobs and what I learned in each of these positions. Then a few typical behavioural questions followed – give me an example where you led a team, where you challenged the status quo, where you went beyond yourself and so on in line with the defining principles of Haas.
Read more
Published: December 9, 2010
Columbia MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Early Decision / Alum / Off-Campus
Prep: Clearadmit wiki, GMATClub, friends, my fiancée (who is a Dale Carnegie course grad) Atmosphere: The interview was held at the interviewer’s office. Its in a fairly large building, so after he picked me up at security we got to have a nice informal chat as we walked up to his desk. This was great for setting the mood as the rest of the interview was very conversational. Questions: Why Columbia? Why MBA? Career goals? He challenged me a bit on my career goals and we had some back and forth where I defended them and illustrated my knowledge of
Read more
Published: December 8, 2010
UNC / Kenan-Flagler MBA Admissions Interview Questions: EA / Adcom / On-Campus
I reached Chapel Hill the previous night and stayed with a friend of mine, who is a current student of KF. I simply loved the city with all its fall colours. My interview was scheduled for 10 AM. I reached the admissions office about 30 mins in advance and met a few current students who dispalyed a very collaborative nature which I think is one of the hallmarks of KF. At 10 , I met Ed Davis who was going to interview me. He is a really nice chap who spoke a bit about how he got associated with KF
Read more
Published: December 8, 2010
Kellogg MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Adcom / On-Campus
I wanted to share my Kellogg interview experience. I was interviewed by Yana, an admissions director. She made sure that I understood it was a blind interview. Questions are as follows (mostly in that order) Walk me through your resume highlighting your career progress. Tell me about your leadership skills. My example was a time when I managed multiple teams from various companies. She wanted to know how I worked towards getting all of them on to the same page. Tell me about a situation where your team failed and how did you work towards improving the situation. What are
Read more
Published: December 8, 2010
Chicago Booth MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Alumnus / Off-campus
I completed by R1 interview with an Alumnus in my city on Nov 24th, we met at her office in the evening. The conversation was very casual, we both had a similar experience of moving countries we touched base on that and then just friendly talk followed. She didn’t have a printout of my resume, I had brought along an extra one so I gave that to her and then she asked me to walk her through my resume giving details about undergrad and grad school and work experiences. She didn’t ask any particular questions but stuff on my resume
Read more
Published: December 8, 2010
Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / AdCom Officer / Video Skype
I completed by video interview with Yale with an AdCom officer, about a month ago. This being my first interview I was really nervous and I am pretty sure I gave some wrong/ incomplete answers. Nevertheless here are the questions she asked me Tell me about yourself What did you like doing in your free time at college Why did you pick that (undergrad) school/ what made you pick company ABC for your first job, what did you like most there/ did you like your team?/ what made you switch countries What are your short term goals – I said
Read more
Published: December 8, 2010
Tepper MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / On-campus / Adcom
Having been in pittsburgh for over 5 months, I decided to intiate my interivew after submitting the app. I had visited the school before and found the place to be pretty exciting with a lot of talented students. My interview was at 12:00 PM and I drove straight after an office meeting. I was scheduled to interview with Devin Bownes. After meeting her, I realized that I had met her during my previous visit and conveyed the same. I also met Mr. Linwood Harris, who recognized me and wished me luck. So the interview started in a casual manner and
Read more
Published: December 7, 2010
UVA / Darden MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Adcom / Video Skype
The interview was conducted by an Adcom officer, it was very informal and pleasant. There were no probing questions about how, what or why. She said I would have about 30-45 min to simply “ tell my story”. She asked me to hit upon the following points: College Grad school Work experiences Why I made some of the choices in my career Why MBA and why now I went into detail about why I picked my undergrad college, why that major and what I really gained from it. How I got my masters degree picked my first job. A little
Read more
Published: December 7, 2010
Harvard MBA Admissions Interview Questions: ound 1 / Hub office Off-campus / Adcom
Here are some questions I was asked (lots of them were prob related to my personal background): Why did you choose [my college]? Where else did you apply? You didn’t get to visit [my college] right? So what did you find about [my college] that was different than what you were expecting? How would you compare the culture between [IBank #1] and [IBank #2] during your two internships? What did you do during each internship? Lets say you’re in your learning team, and your teammate knows nothing in finance. Explain to him about this [M&A sell-side deal at my previous
Read more
Published: December 7, 2010
Cornell / Johnson MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Alum / On Campus / Round 1
I wanted to share my Johnson interview experience. My interview was scheduled for 6th of December at 3:15 PM. Starting from Pittsburgh, I had no idea what I was entering into. The GPS took me through the Allgheny forest with its icy roads and my car nearly skidded of the road. The highways were no better as they were mostly covered in the snow storm coming out of the lakes. I finally reached Ithaca by 5 in the evening (night probably 🙂 )…. I attended the Information session at Johnson with Surabh Prasad, a current 1st year student. I would recommend
Read more
Published: December 5, 2010
Ross MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / On campus / Second-year student
The Super Saturday event started with an hour-long registration – 30-minute interviews were scheduled throughout the afternoon and each interviewee was assigned a slot. After registration, the dean welcomed the interviewees and answered any question that interviewees wanted to ask for about an hour – he spoke about himself and why he started as dean, current events at the school, and the future direction of Ross. The dean was extremely conversational and informal in his speech, making everyone feel welcome and comfortable (or as much as one can be waiting for an interview.) Besides the interview, there were multiple 1-hour
Read more
Published: December 4, 2010
London Business School MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Alum / Off-Campus
After the first round acceptance, I was informed that I would be contacted by the admin team who would provide me with the details of my interviewer. We then had to schedule an interview prior to the 30th of Nov. The interview was at my interviewer’s office @ 8 am. My interviewer had graduated from LBS over 15 years ago, but has maintained good contact with the school. Our careers were not related, but we had both began in Engineering. Although it was scheduled for an hour, it went on for 2 hours (more because of both parties had alot
Read more
Published: December 2, 2010
Published: December 2, 2010
UCLA / Anderson MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Alum / Off-Campus
My interviewer was an executive at my former workplace and had booked a meeting room at his office. It was a mixture of formal and informal questions. He had a list of questions that he said was mandated to him by the admissions staff + general questions that he was interested in. List of interview questions: Walk me through your resume Why MBA? Why Now? Why UCLA? What other schools did you apply to? Based on your current interests, have you looked into schools x and y? If you got into all your schools, why would you pick UCLA over
Read more
Published: December 2, 2010
Cornell / Johnson MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Alum / Off-Campus / Round 1
I had an alumni interview in November where we met at the interviewer’s office. Everything was pretty relaxed and total time was about 30-35 minutes during which the interviewer wrote notes on my responses using forms provided by Cornell. Tell me about yourself. Why Cornell? What other schools did you apply to? Why? Why MBA? What are your career goals? Why are you applying to the other schools? (the interviewer seemed to want more detail to show the connection between the schools) Tell me about a time you displayed leadership. Tell me about a time you had to overcome a
Read more
Published: November 30, 2010
UNC / Kenan-Flagler MBA Admissions Interview Questions: EA Round 1 / Alum / Off-Campus
I recently completed my UNC interview on the 27th of November. The interview lasted roughly 1 hr 20 mins and was with an alumnus in Mumbai. Location: his office Time : morning, 11:30 am Resources used : it was a blind interview , he asked me for my resume and read through it before we began A summary of questions asked top 3 accomplishments team work walk me through your resume community involvement and extra curriculars a lot of grilling on why MBA, why UNC and short term and long term goals plan B if the school rejects you small town/ big
Read more
Published: November 30, 2010
Wharton MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Alum / Off-Campus
Lauder Interview Had my interview in a meeting room at the alumnus’ office.. thankfully we stopped to grab some water before going in to the meeting room. Interviewer started off by telling me a little bit about his background and then asked me to do the same. The interview overall was pretty laid-back and conversational and I asked questions throughout the interview as well as at the end. Specific questions I was asked included: Tell me about yourself. What are your short term and long term goals? – We discussed these in more depth – he had some follow up
Read more
Published: November 29, 2010
INSEAD MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Alumni / Off-campus
First Interview: My interviewer is a CEO of an Investment Company in Abu Dhabi, he’s Lebanese and so down-to-earth; a graduate of McGill (Engineering) and Stanford (Ms Eng). The interview time was 45 minutes, and i felt it went very positive especially that i was very motivated and passionate. Major questions asked: Tell me about yourself… it’s like walk me through your resume.. he wanted to know about my background and experience, and the major events in my life. He then asked a lot of questions (even in details) about my company (structure, activity, how do we get projects/clients etc…)
Read more
Published: November 29, 2010
Chicago Booth MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Alumnus / Off-campus
I just completed my offcampus interview today with an alum at Starbucks. The conversation was causal for me and it lasted about 45 minutes. Most questions are general: Why MBA? Why Booth? short and long term goals? What’s my background? I also had question about my internship in college. My interviewer definitely studied my resume beforehand. This question below came to me as an odd ball, but I just went with my first instinct: What do I consider successful? Good luck people.
Read more
Published: November 28, 2010
London Business School MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Alum / Off-Campus
I had my interview a few days back and I have listed some of the questions that I was asked (at least the ones I remember!) My interviewer was from the same industry as me; in fact the company she works for is a major client of ours! We met in her office at 5 pm and the interview lasted a little more than an hour. The questions in random order are listed below.. What would your team mates have to say about you? How do you handle pressure/ stress? What are some of your limitations/ weaknesses? Example of when
Read more
Published: November 23, 2010
Wharton MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Second-year student / On-campus
For the morning interview with 2nd year student, it’s 3 behavior questions on resolving team conflict, being in a team that others aren’t focused, and defend your idea when people disagree with you. During the beginning introduction 5min and the finishing question sessions, the conversation between the interviewer and me was very friendly, I think I’ve delivered my passion for the school, and made a few jokes that made the interviewer genuinely laugh, and I seemed to have built the rapport between us. However, during these two phases, he did not take any notes. Then during the 3 behavior questions
Read more
Published: November 22, 2010
Wharton MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / On-campus / Second-year Student
The interview atmosphere was very casual. After waiting for about ten minutes in the admissions office waiting room, I was escorted to an interview room by a second-year MBA student. The first five minutes of the interview was a casual conversation outlining the items on my resume. The interviewer then said he had to “get through” some specific questions. After he asked a question, I would respond, and he would frequently comment on my responses, or ask follow-up questions. It was a very casual, conversational interview. Some specific questions that were asked: Tell me some of your weaknesses Describe your
Read more
