Interview Questions & Reports

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.

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Published: January 24, 2006

Columbia MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Almunus / Off Campus

January 06, Chicago. The interview was with an alumni (MBA ’01) in Chicago. We met in Starbucks in Sears Tower (downstairs from my office) and spent about 1 hour and 15 mins for the interview. The interview was very informal, as expected. To summarize, the interview was just a discussion with me in focus. Questions: What do you like to do, at work and for leisure? What did you work on today? What is your progress at work? What were challenges as work? To what other schools did you apply? Why Columbia? The interviewer asked me about the admissions process Read more

Published: January 23, 2006

Ross MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Off-campus / alumni

It started very formal, with the interviewer reading a description from an official packet, then launched into a series of standard questions. After about 5-10 minutes, it became much more conversational and fun, less formal. Interview portion lasted about ~25 minutes with 10 minutes of me asking questions. Her questions: Tell me about yourself, walk me through your resume Specific questions about my resume (she had asked for it before and was prepared with detailed questions) Why MBA? What hope to achieve during MBA, what specifically at Ross? What do I bring to the table, what one thing will I Read more

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Published: January 23, 2006

Tuck MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 2

My interviewer was a male second year student (formerly in the military) who was very friendly and did try to sell the school. We talked a lot about my work experience – and I did highlight the fact that I had worked with colleagues abroad, etc. We also talked a little about my China experience – he found the fact that I was in Beijing during the SARS epidemic quite interesting. (He lived in different countries in Asia so is more or less familiar with the place). We also talked a little bit about my hobbies. He asked me the Read more

Published: January 23, 2006

MIT / Sloan MBA Admissions Interview Questions: adcom / R1

As others have noted, you will probably only get asked 1-2 main questions, and then spend the whole interview getting probed on those. So it’s important to prepare high-yield examples in advance, preferably from work – especially since you can’t use any of the topics in your essay. My interviewer primed me on the interview style beforehand, and told me because of the nature of the interview, it was perfectly fine to pause and think about it before providing my example. I did this prior to both questions to collect my thoughts, and he didn’t seem to mind. Specific questions Read more

Published: January 22, 2006

Wharton MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / Alum

My interview was very pleasant, although a bit harder than my HBS interview surprisingly. The interview lasted for an hour and 15 minutes, which I think is probably much longer than usual. The interview was very friendly, and I felt very comfortable. It seemed like the interviewer had a set of questions in mind to ask me before I arrived. The interviewer was also very honest and gave me a positive evaluation of what he thought my fit for the school would be. He also walked me through the steps of the admissions process. Questions (in no particular order): Walk Read more

Published: January 21, 2006

Kellogg MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Alumni

I received the contact info from Kellogg for a local alumna. She was pretty quick to respond to my e-mail. We agreed to meet at a coffee shop. She had just graduated in the past year and I was her first applicant interview. The interview lasted about two hours. Questions: Tell me about your career progression. What is your typical role in a team? Tell me about a time where your role in the team changed. Tell me about a time when you led your team to overcome an obstacle. What do you enjoy about helping people? Why are you Read more

Published: January 20, 2006

MIT / Sloan MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Ad Com

My MIT interviewer was a member of AdCom. She was familiar with my entire application. Most of her questions asked me to go deeper into experiences from my essays and resume. Interview lasted 30 minutes. Questions: Why MBA? Why now? What made you decide to apply to MIT? What surprises you most about MIT? Tell me more about your current responsibilities. What are your career goals? Tell me about a significant leadership experience. What is your relationship with your manager? What is his role vs your role? Read more

Published: January 19, 2006

Tuck MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Student / on-campus

My Tuck interview was the first one I did – probably not the best idea since it’s pretty high on my list of choices. I had been to the Dartmouth campus a few times during undergrad, so I was familiar with the environment. There were about 15 others visiting the same day as I, and I realized quickly how tight the timeliness were for completing an interview. As everyone else does, I interviewed with a 2nd year student. I was a bit nervous, but I think that’s par for the course. Some of the good things: Similar work background to Read more

Published: January 19, 2006

Chicago Booth MBA Admissions Interview: On campus / 2nd Year Student

The interviewer asked all the standard questions (goals, why MBA, why now, why the GSB etc). Therefore, I’ll just elucidate on slight variants and questions I wasn’t quite prepared for. A common question is how your co-workers would describe you. My interviewer asked me how my supervisor would describe me, which threw me a little. I was asked about a difficult problem I faced that I had to solve. This type of question is so broad that it provides an opportunity to share something you’d like the interviewer to know. At the end, I was asked if there was anything Read more

Published: January 19, 2006

UCLA / Anderson MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Adcom / R2

The following is a brief summary of my interview and visit experience: The UCLA campus is beautiful and Anderson in particular has a very new, and beautiful facility. The class I sat in on focused on was excellent and the students seemed more knowledgeable and accomplished than those at schools with higher rankings that i visited. I was very impressed. The interview is a 1/2 hour interview with one of four associate admissions directors. The main focus of the interview covered the following two questions: Please explain your resume and work history to me. Why is Anderson so appealing to Read more

Published: January 18, 2006

Wharton MBA Admissions Interview Questions

I interviewed during round 1 on campus with a second year student. The interviewer asked all the standard questions, plus the Wharton-specific question about potential red flags in my application. Therefore, I’ll just elucidate on slight variants and questions I wasn’t quite prepared for. Rather than asking “why Wharton,” the question I was very much prepared for, the interviewer asked what qualities I looked for when I was deciding which MBA programs to apply to. It’s not difficult to re-frame your answer by listing attributes that naturally lead you to Wharton, but I certainly would have done a better job Read more

Published: January 18, 2006

Yale SOM MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1 / On Campus / Second Year Student

I applied for Yale in the first round and received the invite early in December. There were bunch of available slots for on-campus interview in December/January/February, and I also had the alternative to email the Admission Office to schedule alumni interview. I scheduled an on–campus interview for early January. I came to the Admissions Office about 30 minutes before the interview (a small building). I parked the car in front of the building (there were enough unoccupied meters). It was a 2nd year student who interviewed me. The interviewer already had a copy of my resume, and we started walking Read more

Published: January 17, 2006

London Business School MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1

Here is the interview process for London Business School: This is my experience for Rd1 for class of 2008 (Fall 2006 entry) Scheduling Interview: Once you receive an invite to interview from the admissions team, you will get an email from your local country/region representative with an alumnus name and email for you to contact the person. In my case, after exchanging a few emails, we decided on time and place to meet. Interview Duration: Mine lasted an hour and half. I have heard interviews lasting between 1 hour and 2 hours. So it’s most likely the longest business school Read more

Published: January 17, 2006

Wharton MBA Admissions Interview Questions: R1 / Hub / Ad Com

My interview began promptly and lasted 35 minutes. Overall, I found the interview to be much more relaxed than I had anticipated. Before we started, the interviewer stated that the interview would not be overly formal. The interview began in accordance with the chronology of my resume and I was first asked to explain why I chose to pursue my undergraduate major. I then fielded various questions that focused on choices I had made throughout my education, why I chose to pursue certain areas of study, why I chose to study in specific countries, etc. Throughout the interview, I felt Read more

Published: January 17, 2006

Columbia MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Early Decision / Off Campus / Alumnus

This report summarizes my Columbia interview in late November 2005. After receiving my interview invitation from CBS Admissions Committee, I contacted one of the interviewers from the list of interviewers that the school had provided me. To my surprise, after we agreed on a time to meet, my interviewer posed a couple of typical MBA interview questions over the phone: what is your background, why do you want/need an MBA and why now, why Columbia, and what do you want to do after graduation. Although I was later told that this is unusual, applicants reading this report may want to Read more

Published: January 16, 2006

Tuck MBA Admissions Interview Questions

Tuck interview was pretty straight forward, as mentioned on this site 🙂 The questions included: Walk me through your resume What are your goals (long term and short term) Why MBA, why now and why Tuck Tell me about a time when you took lead in a team setting (the interviewer mentioned that being a team player was very important at Tuck) What do you do outside of work. Any questions for me I asked him how did they manage to get good professors given the remote location and the absence of a PhD program and I asked him what percent Read more

Published: January 16, 2006

Columbia MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Early Decision / Alumnus / Off Campus

My interview was with a Columbia alumnus, and we met in a quiet coffee lounge. He seemed fairly laid back, which made the interview easy for me, but very difficult to ‘read’ his reaction. I think that I must have asked him more questions than he asked me during the hour. We started with a few initial questions, mainly about my current job, what led me to it, what schools I have applied for, and why the MBA makes sense for me at this point in my career, which I think I did a good job of articulating. I also Read more

Published: January 16, 2006

Chicago Booth MBA Admissions Interview Questions: off campus / alumnus / round 1

My GSB interview was a standard Q&A type interview for which I felt quite well prepared. My interview was with a recent alumnus and we agreed to meet at his place of business, the offices of a large management consultancy in Central London on a Saturday evening. The interview was delayed by twenty minutes because the receptionists weren’t able to locate him to tell him I was waiting. Fortunately I had his cellphone number and was able to notify him of my presence myself. He was a very friendly Irish guy, and when we finally met, we spent the first Read more

Published: January 16, 2006

MIT / Sloan MBA Admissions Interview Questions: adcom / R1

I received the interview invite twenty days before it actually happened. I was offered four date options in Latin America (two in Sao Paulo, one in Buenos Aires and one in Santiago). The adcom interviewed five people in my day. The interviewer was very familiar with my application and her questions were focused on further detailing the experiences I have told in my essays. The interview lasted 45 minutes. Questions Tell me more about a project experience you had. What was your role? How have you managed to convince them to move towards the direction you wanted? Tell me a Read more

Published: January 14, 2006

Kellogg MBA Admissions Interview Questions: R2 / On Campus / Adcom

This article originally appeared on my blog… My Kellogg interview came off pretty well, especially considering that I have not sat for any kind of genuine job interview since 2000. As others have reported, the interview was conversational and non-threatening, though relatively detailed and substantive. We started off with a question or two about my college experiences and then started working through the resume. The interviewer did not just say: “Walk me through your resume.” Instead, she walked me through my resume and asked specific questions about the firms I worked for and why I moved on Read more

Published: January 13, 2006

London Business School MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Round 1

Here is the interview process for London Business School: ANGEL ANGIE’S INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE I applied to R1 and got the interview decision at the end of November 2005. I was contacted a week later with the details of my interviewer (an MBA2005 alumni). I am writing this on January 14th 2006. Timing and location: We agreed to meet on the weekend since we were busy and out of town on weekdays. We met in the cafe of a 5* hotel in the city center and shared a jasmine tea during the interview. Interview Duration: Mine lasted two Read more

Published: January 12, 2006

MIT / Sloan MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Adcom / Round 1 / San Fran Hub

The interviewer only asks a few questions, but really probes your responses and keeps asking things like “how did it make you feel”, “why did you do that”, “how did the other employees react”. He specifically instructed me to not use examples I used in my essays so it is definitely good to have some extra stories/examples prepared for the interview. The questions I was asked: Any updates to your application? Why did you choose your undergrad major? What’s a personal goal you’ve set for yourself in the past 1-2 years? Describe a time when you’ve confronted an obstacle. Why Read more

Published: January 10, 2006

Tuck MBA Admissions Interview Questions: December round phone interview with second year student

The call came on time at 8:45pm and the interview took about 35 minutes (my interviewer had an 8:30am class, 9:30pm my time). Questions asked: Question about one of my extracurricular activities. Why do you need an MBA now? What do you want from an MBA program? How do you see yourself contributing to Tuck? Give me an example of a time when you set a goal and what you did to achieve it. It was a straightforward interview without any questions designed to trip me up. Despite that, I didn’t quite execute as well as I should have due Read more

Published: January 10, 2006

Chicago Booth MBA Admissions Interview Questions: Off campus / Alumni / Round 2

The interview took place at the office of the alumnus, a graduate from the late 90s. The interview was not so much an admissions interview as it was a friendly conversation. None of the typical questions were explicitly asked, though I managed to work some of my canned answers into my responses. Since we work at different ends of the same industry, most of the talk was about the gritty technical details of my work and a detailed discussion about my goals in the industry post-MBA. Several years removed from B-School, he actually was asking me about the GSB since Read more

Published: December 31, 2005

Berkeley / Haas January 2006 Interview

My interview was scheduled at 1:30pm on campus – for 30 minutes. I reached the Admissions Office 20 mins early and checked myself in. Having visited Berkeley several times (especially to eat delicious Indian food), I didnt have any trouble finding the school. The partking lot mentioned in the invitation email was the one where I parked my car – about 10 mins uphill walk from the school building. The interview started exactly at 1:30pm The interviewer was a lady from AdCom. She had my resum and mentioned that she hadn’t looked at my essays as yet. The interview was Read more

MBA LiveWire

January 2, 2026 10:16pm ET

Applied to UPenn / Wharton

Round: Round 2

Received via portal

Standardized Test: GRE

GPA: 3.54

GRE: 332

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Finance

Application Location: United States, San Francisco

January 2, 2026 10:00pm ET

Applied to Harvard Business School

Round: Round 2

Received via portal

Standardized Test: GRE

GPA: 3.54

GRE: 332

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Finance

Application Location: United States, San Francisco

January 2, 2026 9:59pm ET

Applied to Columbia

Round: Round 2

Received via portal

Standardized Test: GRE

GPA: 3.54

GRE: 332

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

January 2, 2026 4:53pm ET

Rejected at UVA / Darden

Round: Round 1

Received via portal on December 09, 2025

Standardized Test: GRE

GPA: 4.17

GRE: 334

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Post MBA Career: Consulting

Target Career: Finance

Application Location: Nigeria, Lagos

Note:

I was surprised at this decision, at the same time not very surprised as the interview didn’t go that well for me and I feel that was what possibly drove the decision, the interviewer (2Y MBA Student) was quite out of touch with my pre MBA career field and struggled to understand my response to the interview questions, she had to draw me back a couple of times to understand what I was speaking about, so I can imagine how she was able to make a case for me when she was struggling to understand me.

January 2, 2026 4:01pm ET

Waitlisted at Duke / Fuqua

Round: Round 1

Received via portal on December 10, 2025

Standardized Test: GRE

GPA: 4.17

GRE: 334

Program Type: Traditional Two-Year

Target Career: Finance

Application Location: Nigeria, Lagos

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