Wharton MBA Interviews for Fall 2012 Admission

Fall 2012 Admission Wharton MBA Interview Preparation
 
Updated on 11/17/11. There are now numerous public reports up on the Clear Admit Wiki and those additional reports have helped me further update this post on Wharton MBA interviews for the Class of 2014. My  Wharton essay analysis can be found here. I will continue altering this post based on additional public interview reports, but I am seeing the same questions repeated over and over, so I suspect that Wharton is not using that many questions (maybe 9-12 questions), but will wait to make that judgment.  After more reports are in, I will rework this post further to assist those applying for R2.

The reports I am receiving from my own clients are consistent with those from the Wiki though there appears to be significant variation in to what extent applicants are asked the general non-behavioral questions. Please note that I never provide questions that my own clients have given me because they have been communicated in confidence. The only information that I have used from my own client reports is to confirm publicly available information.

INCLUDES SOME GENERAL MBA INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
The public reports (Clear Admit Wharton Interview Wiki) so far includes  general questions "Tell me about yourself," "Talk about yourself/walk me through your resume," "What do you do?" (asked before a resume walk through), "Why Wharton, "Why now?", and "How do you choose between business schools?".  There is some variation on what non-behavioral questions get asked. Expect 1-2 questions either at the beginning or end of the interview, but not necessarily the questions reported so far.  These routine interview questions may also simply take the form of a conversation about your background.


RESUME WALK THROUGH
During the October 26th Wharton interview chat, admissions emphasized knowing your resume and application well.  The public interview reports I mentioned above are consistent with that comment. That said, keep in mind that the Wharton interview is totally blind.  The only thing the interviewer will have your is resume.  

If you are asked to walk through your resume or asked "tell me about yourself,"  I suggest you provide a short 1-2  minute walk through and not a 3-5 minute version.
A "typical" answer would consist of the following:
A sentence on your background.
A sentence on your education.
A sentence on your professional experience.
A sentence on what you do outside of work.
Adjust as necessary, but not too long. The "sentence" above, might be 1-3 actual sentences depending on your situation.  My point is rather to give a general idea of what to include. 

I think it is usually easiest to provide the above chronologically. Emphasize not just the facts, but provide an interpretation (How? Why?) of your past. 

The roles of the resume in Wharton interviews

Since they are asking you to bring your resume, even if you are not asked to tell them about yourself or walk through your resume, unless this purely for symbolic reasons, I think it is worth remembering the kind of roles a resume is likely to play in your interview:
A First Impression:   Make sure your resume is really designed for ease of use by the interviewer.  One of my objectives when helping a client with a resume is always to focus on how effective the resume is for this purpose.
Agenda Setting Device: To a greater or lesser extent, a resume has an agenda setting function in many interviews.  While Wharton is seemingly providing interviewers with a very high level of guidance about what questions to ask, the resume may very well impact which questions the interviewer focuses on.  Or it may not have any such effect at all.
Booby Trap:  The resume can blow-up in your face if you are not careful.  Failure to review your own resume closely prior to interviewing can put you in an awkward position if you are not fully prepared to discuss everything on it. Since adcom repeatedly emphasized during the October 26th chat that you should know your resume well, this point is worth keeping in mind.
Your Main Depository of Past Experience Answers: Since you have presumably highlighted many of the key things you would actually want to discuss on your resume, it is in essence, a primary source for your answers to past experience questions aka Behavioral Questions. Especially when I working with a client with limited English ability, I will tell them to practice explaining “Who What Why How When” questions related to their resume.

WHY Wharton? Why MBA? What are your Goals? Why now?  How do you choose between business schools?

In the event that you get asked such questions be prepared to provide a short and clear  answer to each of the above.  Be prepared for limited or perhaps zero follow-up.

Be ready to ask a few questions
There will likely be time to ask your interviewer a few questions.You should be ready to ask questions to your interviewer. What you ask should be governed by the following considerations:
1. Is the answer to the question obvious? If so, don't ask the question.
2. Is the answer to the question really relevant to you? If not, don't ask it. General questions that have no specific connection to you are probably not worth asking.
3. Will the interviewer be able to answer the question? In general avoid asking interviewers questions that they are not really able to answer.
When formulating questions it is obviously important to consider who you will be interviewing with because what you ask a current student is not necessarily the same as what you ask an admissions officer (or what you ask an admissions officer who you know is a Wharton alumni versus one who is not).

THREE BEHAVIORAL QUESTIONS
All reports so far indicate that every applicant will be asked three interview questions, just like last year, but the questions are not necessarily as limited as last year.  In fact, based on the October 26th chat (See my report.), unlike last year, interviews for Fall 2012 admission will not be limited to the small group of six questions that were asked. Still, as indicated below, the reports don't indicate that Wharton is using as nearly large a range of interview questions as MIT Sloan uses.

STAR

Before reading the rest of this post, I strongly suggest downloading a copy of MIT's  guide to behavioral interviews, The MIT Sloan Interview Guide, because reading it first will maximize the value of my comments below. Also, since the meanies at Wharton Adcom don't put anything like this MIT guide together and can't give better advice than "I would encourage you to do some google research...behavioral interviews are based on situations and reactions," I suggest you look at MIT guide. In addition to the MIT SLOAN Guide, I suggest also taking a look at the slightly different guide to the Star Technique that MIT Career Services provides.

The STAR technique is really the core method you need to use for answering behavioral questions. It is simply this:

• Situation: define the situation or “set the stage.”

• Task: identify the task/project performed.

• Action: describe the action you took.

• Result: summarize the outcome

The behavioral interview method is not old (if you are me and born in 1968):

“Bill Byham, CEO and founder of Development Dimensions International, originated the behavioral interviewing method in 1970.” The STAR technique was developed by Byham as THE WAY to answer behavioral questions:

Byham calls an example of past behavior a STAR, because a complete example consists of a situation or task, the specific action you took and the result of your action. The result you describe doesn't have to be positive; it could be that you learned a valuable lesson from doing something the wrong way.
In his book "Landing the Job You Want: How to Have the Best Job Interview of Your Life" (Three Rivers Press, 1997), Byham tells candidates how to identify the skills for a job; explore their own "behavioral dimensions" (the behaviors they use every day to get things done); and recognize and present a STAR with positive impact in an interview.

When you are using STAR, just keep in mind that you need to be introspective as well, so in an interview say what you thought as well as what you did. Don’t just present “the facts” but actively interpret your actions. There is really nothing overly complicated about this as long as you understand that you need to tell a DETAILED story. Pure abstractions disconnected from a concrete set of action steps are highly likely to result in a weak answer. Similarly, grand actions not told in any depth are also likely to be weak. Identify specific actions that contributed to the result so as to establish a clear link between cause and effect.

As when answering any kind of question, another important consideration is to think very critically about what your story selection, understanding of the task, actions taken, and results say about you. Keep in mind that the whole point of asking behavioral questions is to determine how someone acts and thinks as a basis for selecting or rejecting that person. It is obviously critical to be aware of your own message. Specifically think of examples you can use to highlight your intelligence, creativity, leadership skills, interpersonal communication skills, and conflict resolution skills.

KNOWN CATEGORIES OF QUESTIONS USED BY WHARTON
Last year, Wharton only used 6 questions divided into three categories.  According to the chat, they will be using many questions and it will not be just limited to a few.  I think it is worth keeping these six in mind (Taken from Poets and Quants):

The questions on “team building” are:

“Describe a time when you have been working toward the completion of an important task, when it has been necessary to consider the opinions and feelings of others.”

“Describe a time when you have worked as part of a team working towards an important goal, when you have addressed conflict between two or more team members.”

The questions on “facilitative leadership” are:

“Describe a time when you have worked with others to complete an important task, when there was no formally appointed group leader.”

“Describe a time when you have ensured an important task has been completed, when you felt others were less focused than you on completing the important task.”

The questions on “persuasive communication” are:

“Describe a time when you have had to persuade others to your way of thinking, when at first they did not buy into your idea.”

“Describe a time when your ideas have been challenged by others, requiring you to defend your opinions.”

Here are questions from the published public reports:
-Describe a time when someone convinced you to change your opinion. How did they do it and what was your response?
-Describe a situation where team members initially disagreed with you and you convinced them of your view. What was your strategy and their response?
-Describe a time when you had to manage someone either much more or much less experienced than you. What was your strategy and their response? Were you successful?
- Tell me about a time when you had to manage someone very senior to you in your team/ organization/ client. (UNLIKE THE PREVIOUS QUESTION, WAS NOT GIVEN THE OPTION OF CHOOSING SOMEONE YOUNGER)
-Tell me about a time when you were unsuccessful at a task/ managing a team and what will do you do differently now.

 

WHARTON 2012  PREPARATION QUESTIONS: Combining these Class of 2014 reports and the Class of 2013 questions together we get the following (Note Class of 2014 questions in bold:

TEAM WORK:

-“Describe a time when you have been working toward the completion of an important task, when it has been necessary to consider the opinions and feelings of others.”

-“Describe a time when you have worked as part of a team working towards an important goal, when you have addressed conflict between two or more team members.”
 -Describe a situation where team members initially disagreed with you and you convinced them of your view. What was your strategy and their response?

-Tell me about a time when you were unsuccessful at managing a team. What would you do differently now. 

LEADERSHIP:

“Describe a time when you have worked with others to complete an important task, when there was no formally appointed group leader.”

“Describe a time when you have ensured an important task has been completed, when you felt others were less focused than you on completing the important task.”
-Describe a time when you had to manage someone either much more or much less experienced than you. What was your strategy and their response? Were you successful?
- Tell me about a time when you had to manage someone very senior to you in your team/ organization/ client. (NOTE:UNLIKE THE PREVIOUS QUESTION, WAS NOT GIVEN THE OPTION OF CHOOSING SOMEONE YOUNGER)

PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION:

“Describe a time when you have had to persuade others to your way of thinking, when at first they did not buy into your idea.”
-Tell me about a time when someone did not agree with you at first and you convinced them of your opinion. (How exactly did you do it? What was their reaction? Did they agree immediately or it took several attempts?) (NOTE: Same as the previous question of last year.  This report included nice follow-up questions)

“Describe a time when your ideas have been challenged by others, requiring you to defend your opinions.”
-Describe a time when someone convinced you to change your opinion. How did they do it and what was your response? (Note: MULTIPLE REPORTS, in this case you are the one who is convinced to change your opinion.)

 -Describe a situation where team members initially disagreed with you and you convinced them of your view. What was your strategy and their response?
-Describe a time when you pushed for a project.
-Describe a time you pushed forward or championed a cause or initiative, and what did you do to influence people?

FAILURE
-Tell me about a time when you were unsuccessful at a task/ managing a team and what will do you do differently now. 
-Tell me about a time when you led a team and it failed. How did that teammate initially react?
-Tell me a time when a project you led failed 
-Tell me about a time when you were unsuccessful at managing a team. What would you do differently now?   

How To Prepare Outlines for Practicing Behavioral Questions

I would suggest making some simple STAR (Situation Task Action Result) outlines.  For example:

Team Story 1: Project X
S:  Harry was not cooperating with the rest of the team on Project X.
T: My job was get the team to work together because Project X really required everyone to participate. Harry was important because of his technical skills.
A: In order to get Harry to cooperate I..  (ACTION 1) first talked with him privately to better understand his perspective.  Next, (ACTION 2) I talked with the rest of team to try and make an adjustment so that Harry would feel more comfortable. Finally (ACTION 3) Established information sharing sessions so that everyone understood what needed to be done and how our work fit together.
R: Project X succeeded.

The above outline could be used to answer such questions as "Tell me about a time when you were part of a team that had poor dynamics/didn't get along well," "Tell me about a time when you had to deal with someone who wasn't pulling his/her weight," and “Describe a time when you have worked as part of a team working towards an important goal, when you have addressed conflict between two or more team members.”

Now, when you actually practice the above for a behavioral interview, you would need to flesh out the story and provide more details.  If you have outlined a STAR story, you  have not practiced it yet.   The only reason to outline STAR stories is if you cannot systematically turn any spoken story into STAR automatically.  Actually once you start using STAR, chances are that you will not need any outlines.  STAR is actually a highly intuitive way to tell stories and useful for telling stories in any situation. 

THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY
Clients often want me to read their interview preparation notes. I usually refuse because I think it is a total waste of their money to have me do that.  I believe such outlines are useful for the person doing the preparation, but all I can really evaluate is their performance.  If I have a client with a TOEFL under 100, I might review their scripts because given that they may lack basic English vocabulary for effectively telling their stories. This is not case with the vast majority of my clients, even those with TOEFL scores at the 100 level.
An outline is a map, but in the case of an interview it is really lousy map because an interview is all about performance, the territory. You can have the best stories in the world, but if you can't deliver them effectively, you are dead.

ACTUAL PRACTICE
Depending on your communication skills, available time, and comfort with interviews you may need days or weeks or months to be at your best. Whatever amount of practice you think you need, try to actually do more than that.  One of my clients who had already been admitted to two top schools, did 50 hours of practice on his own to get ready for HBS.  He was successful because he put in enough time actually speaking the answers  to many common questions that he could feel comfortable and confident.  He did just a couple of hours of interview practice with me and one of my colleagues. He was admitted to HBS. I wish all my clients followed this example of extensive self-practice.  While the exact ratio of counseling hours (strategy sessions focused on developing good answers and mock interviews) to self-study will vary, I think somewhere between a 1:5 and 1:20 ratio is ideal.  I am always depressed when a client only does interview practice during sessions with me and then does no practice by themselves because I know they are not maximizing their performance. Like a great musician or actor, you need to internalize your script/notes/outline to perform it effectively. I can best help a client by judging that performance.  Something could look great or horrible on paper, but very much the reverse when actually performed.

How to practice:
1. Speak.  Doing it in your head is not enough.  Actually perform to the hardest audience you will ever encounter: yourself.
2. Record yourself and listen and/or view the results. Note problems and practice more.
3. Speak in front of other people who can give you feedback.  Even if you are using a consultant try to practice in front of other people. This will help make you comfortable having an audience.
4. Have school specific mock sessions, either with a admissions consultant or someone who can at least ask you the questions.

(For additional suggestions on interview strategy, see here, here, and here. Some of the content in those posts repeats what is here.)

I know that what I am suggesting might be burdensome and time consuming, but so what?  The whole application process is like that.  And at least with interview practice, you might actually become better at telling stories (Good for making friends!) and interviewing for jobs. Best of luck with your Wharton Class of 2014 interview!

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

First Public Wharton November 2011 interview Report

Update: My updated analysis of Wharton MBA interviews for Fall  2012 is now up. 

The first public Wharton Interview Report is now up on the Clear Admit Wiki:

"I just had my interview with a 2nd year Wharton student today. The interviewer was very friendly and tried to keep things casual. We had a similar professional background (finance) and even shared the same past employer. The interview went smoothly and roughly as expected. There were a few standard, introductory questions at first and then three behavioral questions. They were similar but not exactly the same as last year's list. The general questions were:

-Tell me about yourself/walk me through your resume (I explained why MBA here)
-Why Wharton?

I don't remember the exact wording but the behavioral questions were something like:
-Describe a time when someone convinced you to change your opinion. How did they do it and what was your response?
-Describe a situation where team members initially disagreed with you and you convinced them of your view. What was your strategy and their response?
-Describe a time when you had to manage someone either much more or much less experienced than you. What was your strategy and their response? Were you successful?

At the end there were also some questions about my personal interests and then there was an opportunity to ask him questions. Total time was almost exactly 30 minutes."

While there is no way to verify whether all interviews will consist of contact like the above until we have multiple reports, this is a pretty good indication of what to expect.
Without further public reports, I can't say whether the two non-behavioral questions above are optional or standard or whether the report was inaccurate.  That said, during their interview chat, Wharton adcom emphasized knowing the resume.

-Adam Markus

アダム　マーカス
I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you are interested in my interview preparation services, please see here.

For those looking for overall counseling services, if you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form, which is publicly available on google docs here, and then send your completed form to adammarkus@gmail.com.  You can also send me your resume if it is convenient for you.  Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. See here for why. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

ビジネススクール カウンセリング コンサルティング MBA留学 インタビュー 面接

Wharton has insufficient hub interviews for international applicants: WTF!

My analysis of Wharton MBA interviews can be found here.  This is my rant about their applicant unfriendly admissions committee.

First, let me state that I generally find MBA admissions offices in the US, especially at schools like HBS, Stanford, Chicago, Kellogg, Tuck, and MIT to work really effectively at handling their interview processes.  I guess that is why I find it so amazing that Wharton can't get it together.  As reported in GMAT Club (See here), international applicants are finding it impossible to get interviewed in their home countries and are finding the only option is to visit Wharton. This was never a problem for Wharton applicants before because they had plenty of alumni available to interview them, but this year adcom eliminated alumni interviews and replaced it with... well, seemingly NOTHING.

I first heard this was a problem from my own clients, but see that it appears to be a wider problem.   While I know that Wharton is not famous for its logistics curriculum, one would assume that the Wharton MBA holder who serves as admission director there would have made some allowance for this.  Perhaps making people spend money on last minute international air travel to the US because they were unable to grab a hub interview space in their home country is justifiable in someone's world view, but not in mine.

It is not as though this is an isolated incident. Last year, Wharton adcom screwed up completely with their new approach to interviewing (See here). I wouldn't even bother discussing their earlier scandal before the current adcom crew was in place.

I don't know what these people have against being customer friendly, which is what MBA applicants are, but all I can say is WTF!

Finally, I should add that Wharton Adcom can't get their own story straight because their website says the following:

"All applicants will have the option of interviewing on Wharton’s campus or with an admissions staff member in one of our selected major cities around the world. "

Since obviously all applicants don't have that option, Wharton adcom should alter their interview information to reflect that not all applicants will have the option to interview in selected major cities around the world.   Is it so much to expect a school to provide accurate information about its own admissions processes?

Now, back to work.
-Adam

Comments regarding BW Article on Technology in MBA Applications

I just posted the following comment on the BusinessWeek article "MBA Admissions 2.0: Technology Makes Inroads":


"This article is actually  inaccurate  regarding the specific questions discussed. It creates the misleading impression that technology is actually required when answering questions for NYU and Booth:
1. Booth's 4 page presentation question is in fact, not a test of Power Point as it does not allow for a dynamic use of Power Point, but simply requires 4 static pages.  It is certainly a presentation, but it is as much a technological inroad as using MS Word is to type an essay.  It certainly is a creative, but for many years, NYU has allowed applicants to  make such presentations.  Booth was simply the first school to require one.
2. NYU does not ask "candidates to share something about themselves in a creative way—using a USB drive, DVD, or CD" as this is simply one option.  It would have been accurate to state that. It is not helpful to MBA applicants to tell that will asked to do that.  Applicants can also write an essay, make a presentation, draw a painting, actually there are many possibilities and NYU is very clear about the options.  It is a pity that this article could not convey that the audio/visual recorded option is just one such option.
 -Adam Markus, MBA Admissions Consultant and Blogger"


For my analysis of Booth's essays for 2012 admission, see here.


-Adam

Chicago Booth MBA Admission Interviews

If you are preparing for a Chicago Booth MBA interview for entry into the Class of 2014, read this post after you read my general post on interview strategy. If you are looking for my analysis of Booth's essays for Fall 2012 admission, you can find it here. In addition to receiving many reports from my clients, I have reviewed reports of University of Chicago Booth interviews found at accepted.com and clearadmit.com. 

You need to know your resume completely as you will most likely be asked about content in it. Review it carefully and consider what your interviewer might ask you to explain more thoroughly. If it is on your resume, it is fair game. Booth interviews are conducted blind, so your interview will not have read your application. The only thing they will have is your resume. Most interview reports indicate extensive questions about the contents of the resume. As such it serves form main functions:

A First Impression: Most interviewers will have your resume even before they meet you. For resume-only interviews, it really is their first impression of you.  Make sure your resume is really designed for ease of use by the interviewer.  One of my objectives when helping a client with a resume is always to focus on how effective the resume is for this purpose.

Agenda Setting Device: To a greater or lesser extent, a resume has an agenda setting function in many interviews.  While schools will provide interviewers with varying levels of guidance about what questions to ask, the resume may very well form the basis for some of the questions that you receive. 

Booby Trap:  The resume can blow-up in your face if you are not careful.  Failure to review your own resume closely prior to interviewing can put you in an awkward position if you are not fully prepared to discuss everything on it.

Your Main Depository of Past Experience Answers: Since you have presumably highlighted many of the key things you would actually want to discuss on your resume, it is in essence, a primary source for your answers to past experience questions. Especially when I working with a client with limited English ability, I will tell them to practice explaining “Who What Why How When” questions related to their resume.

In addition, since you might get asked to “Tell me something about yourself that is not covered on your resume,” you can use the resume to figure out what that would be.

Prepare to answer routine MBA questions. Most reported interviews simply consist of them. Have a few questions ready to ask your interviewer about the things that are most important to you and your MBA experience. Getting answers to your questions is an equally important part of any B-school interview." 

My colleague, Steve Green, has gone through reports and put together the following list of common Booth questions:

RESUME

1. Walk me through your resume, but make sure you highlight just a couple of key achievements.
2. Tell me about yourself.
3. Why did you pick your major? Why did you earn a Master’s degree?
4. What are you hobbies / other interests and why?

GOALS

5. What are your short-term goals?
6. Why are you pursuing an MBA?
7. What do you expect from your MBA in the long term?
8. Why now?
9. Why Booth?
10. What other schools have you applied to?  
• How do you compare them to Booth?
• How would you decide between two schools?
• Why would you choose Booth over those?
11. What will you contribute to Booth?
12. What do plan to do outside the classroom at Booth?
13. What is your Plan B if you don’t get accepted to any b-schools?
14. You will not meet most of you classmates after the two years at school. How will you make sure you learn the most from this distinguished set of people? How will YOU make sure they learn from you?
15. Clarifying questions about Booth’s program.
16. What professional groups will you join?
17. Which social groups will you join?
18. Booth has classes that present different settings: group-based, individual, project-based. Which ones do you have a preference for? Why?
19. What will you contribute to Booth, or what will you bring to the Booth community?
20. What if you hate your internship - what is Plan B
21. Place yourself 30 years in the future… what would you define then as having been successful?

LEADERSHIP

22. What is your leadership style, and how do you function when you are not a leader in a team?
23. Tell me about your leadership style?
24. What is one area of weakness you would like to work on regarding your leadership style why earning an MBA?
25. Discuss a time when you had to manage a difficult team or teammate, and how did handle that experience?
27. Tell me about one occasion in which you displayed leadership.
28. Tell me a solution you have recently proposed to your employer (asked for an example in my last setting)
29. Can you tell me about a time when you made an unpopular decision
30. What is your most defining leadership experience
31. Describe your leadership style with an example
32. Tell me about your leadership experience. What/who has influenced your leadership style?
33. Please give me an example of a leadership-based conflict you experienced.
34. Tell me about a leadership failure you experienced. How will it help you at Booth?

TEAMWORK

35. What role do you take on in a team? How have you handled a team-based conflict?
36. Can you tell me about a time that you led your team / convinced your team to do something
37. Can you tell me about a time that you led a team over a period of time
38. Can you tell me about a time that you resolved conflict within your team
39. Can you tell me about a time when you disagreed with someone at your level

STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES

40. Tell me about a time you encountered a challenge?
41. Tell me about a decision you made that you later regretted.
42. You have had a lot of success in the past. How do you handle failure?
43. Tell me something you feel passionate about.
44. What do you think is a weakness that people can have inside or outside of work
45. Tell me something about you that I could not know from reading your resume
46. What are 3 things your friends would describe about you?

OTHER

47. What are the differences you've found between different nationalities while working in a multinational?
48. How is a regular day in your line of work?

CONCLUSION

49. Is there anything that we have not covered that would like to point out, on or off your resume?
50. Do you have any questions for me?

The quality of the interviews really varies. The reports on both sites are with students and alum. Some interviewers are reported to be great and some are not. I think it is important to keep in mind what Chicago says:

Interviews are conducted by admissions staff, students, or alumni. They are held on campus or in a location convenient for the prospective student. All interviews, regardless of who conducts them, receive equal weight in the evaluation process.

While that is true, the reality is that if you can choose, most applicants should take admissions staff. Students and alumni can vary in quality and level of fairness, but on balance admissions officers are more likely to treat you fairly and will be professional. That said, if you think you may do better with alumni, act accordingly. From my perspective, some older Chicago alumni tend to have an outdated view of the school and this can hurt some interviewees who do not intend to focus on finance.  I have noticed that here in Japan, the interviewers now tend to be more recent graduates.  Based on some of my client reports, those applicants with relatively weak English speaking skills are likely to find an alumni interview easier if it is conducted by someone of the same nationality.

5. Reported interview length could be from 30 to 60 minutes, with most reported interviews taking about 45 minutes.

Best of luck with admission to Booth for Fall 2012!

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.