University of Chicago Booth MBA Admissions Interviews

In this post I discuss MBA admissions interviews for the University Chicago Booth. 


If you are looking for my analysis of Booth’s essays for Fall 2014 admission, you can find it here.



Beyond my 21 comprehensive service clients admitted to Booth since Fall 2008 entry (I began my own consulting service in September 2007), I have worked with additional clients only on interviews. and more still from 2001-2007 when I was working for a top test prep company’s consulting service.  The advice below is thus based on working with clients on Booth interviews for over ten years.

For my detailed suggestions on overall interview preparation, please see:
-MBA Application Interview Strategy
-Interview Practice is ABOUT SPEAKING!
-Further Comments on MBA Admissions Interviews 
-General Characteristics of Admissions Officers, Students, and Alumni Interviewers
-Recovering from a bad answer during an MBA admissions interview
-10 Ways to Blow an MBA Admissions Interview
-When to start MBA interview practice? How to prepare?

The above posts are my general perspective on MBA admissions interview strategy and apply here.

 Booth interviews are conducted blind, so your interview will not have read your application and 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. The only thing they will have is your resume.


Most recent Booth interview reports I have seen (both public reports and from my clients), portray the interviewer as friendly.  This is not typically a stress interview.  Booth typically is using younger alumni for interviews, which is a good idea because they are much closer to the current culture of the school, which changed  significantly in the last ten years. Almost all interviews involve student interviewers on campus or alumni off-campus. 

Most interview reports indicate extensive questions about the contents of the resume.  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.

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.”
Like he has done with many other schools, my colleague, Steve Green has compiled the following list of questions from from all the reports submitted to accepted.com   and clearadmit.com.  In addition to our client reports, we use lists of questions like these as part of our prep sessions with clients.

RESUME

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

GOALS & BOOTH

• What are your short-term goals?
• Why are you pursuing an MBA?
• What do you expect from your MBA in the long term?
• Why now?
• Why Booth?
• 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?
• What will you contribute to Booth?
• What do plan to do outside the classroom at Booth?
• What is your Plan B if you don't get accepted to any b-schools?
• 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?
• Clarifying questions about Booth's program.
• What professional groups will you join?
• Which social groups will you join?
• Booth has classes that present different settings: group-based, individual, project-based. Which ones do you have a preference for? Why?
• What will you contribute to Booth, or what will you bring to the Booth community?
• What if you hate your internship – what is Plan B
• Place yourself 30 years in the future… what would you define then as having been successful?

LEADERSHIP

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

TEAMWORK

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

STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES

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

OTHER

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

CONCLUSION

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

Reported interview length is typically about 45-50 minutes. Both shorter, 30 minutes, and longer, 60 minutes, interviews are possible. 

Best of luck with admission to Booth for Fall 2014!

-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.

Michigan Ross MBA Admissions Interviews

This post supplements my main post on preparing for Michigan Ross MBA Admissions Interviews.  It updates that list of questions found in that previous post.

Like he has done with many other schools, my colleague, Steve Green has compiled the following list of questions from from all the reports submitted to accepted.com   and clearadmit.com.  In addition to our client reports, we use lists of questions like these as part of our prep sessions with clients.


Resume:

• Tell me about yourself.  Walk me through your resume. What should I know about you? (*Probe resume: Cross-reference, push for details about why and how.)
• Tell me about your current position.
• How would you sell your undergraduate university to a potential applicant?
• What do you do outside of work?

Goals:

• What are your career goals?
• Why do you want an MBA?
• Why now?
• Why Ross?
• What criteria did you use when choosing MBA programs?
• Have you visited the campus? How do you feel about moving to the Midwest?
• How are you unique compared to other applicants? What can you bring to Ross that sets you apart from others?
• How will you be involved outside of class?
• What will you do if not accepted to Ross?

Teamwork:

• What is your approach to teams?
•  How would you deal with a teammate who doesn't act like a team player?
•  Tell about a time when you dealt with a struggling team member.
•  Tell me how you dealt with a team member who was under-performing / not on par.
•  Tell me about your role on a team.
•  Tell me about a time when you took initiative on a team.
•  Tell me about a time when your team faced a lot of obstacles? (WHAT LEARNED?)

Leadership:

• Tell me about a time you showed initiative.
• Tell me about a situation when you had to think outside the box.
• How do you manage conflict?
• Please give me 3 examples of your leadership experience?
• What does leadership mean to you?

Strengths and Weaknesses:

• Tell me about a time when you had to deal with an abstract situation.
• Tell me about a time when you failed, and what you learned.
• What are you key strengths and one weakness?
• What is your greatest accomplishment to date?
• What 3 adjectives would your friends use to describe you and why?
• What makes you unique?
• What was a challenging experience in your life?
• Tell me about a time when you had a professional failure and what did you learn from it.
•  Tell me about a time when you received negative feedback from a supervisor and how did you respond.

Other:

• What was the last book you read?
•  Do you have any questions for me?

Best of luck with your Ross interview.  For more on Ross interview prep, see my main post on this subject.

-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.

Duke Fuqua MBA Admissions Interviews for the Class of 2016

In my experience, Duke interviews are all about fit. Frankly, I would not characterize the interviews for Team Fuqua as hard when compared to those of other top schools.  As you will see from the questions, below, Fuqua interview questions are very typical MBA interview questions. If you are preparing for interviews for other schools, you will surely see overlap here.

In addition to my experience,  My colleague, Steve Green,  and I  have reviewed reports of Duke University ‘s Fuqua School of Business interviews found at accepted.com and clearadmit.com.

You need to know your resume completely as you will 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. That said, don’t be surprised if the interviewer is using a standardized list of questions. 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.

Bobby 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.

You need to be prepared to answer routine MBA questions. Most reported interviews simply consist of them. Please refer to my prior overall MBA admissions strategy interview posts (here, here, here, and here) for general advice on prepare for the Fuqua interview.

Like he has done with many other schools, my colleague, Steve Green has compiled the following list of questions from from all the reports submitted to accepted.com and  clearadmit.com.  In addition to our client reports, we use lists of questions like these as part of our prep sessions with clients.

Resume

Tell me your story. / Walk me through your resume, please.
Tell me about your company. (+Follow-up questions.)
Tell me about your job. (+Follow-up questions.)
Tell me two things you like and dislike about your job.
Explain your job to me as if I were an 8 year old child

Goals/Why Duke?
What do you want to do and why do you need an MBA to do it?
Why do you want an MBA from Fuqua?
Who have you talked to from Fuqua?
Why do you think you understand the Fuqua culture?
Why not other schools?
Why now?
How will you contribute to Fuqua?
What teams will you contribute to?
How are you unique? Why should Fuqua accept you?
How will you network at Duke?

Leadership & Teamwork
Tell me how you work on a team.
Tell me about a time when you were in a group setting and you had a difficult team member and how you handled the situation.
If you were to build a team what would be important for you?
Tell me about a time when you were in a group setting and you gave an idea that was successful
What’s your leadership style / experience?
Tell me about your favorite boss. Why did you like him/her?
Please tell me about a time you went above and beyond.
Please tell me about your leadership experience outside work.
Tell me about a leadership experience where you failed

Strengths and Weaknesses
Please tell me about your greatest success.
Please tell me about your greatest failure.
Tell me about a time you overcame a challenging situation.
In what areas do you think you need to improve?
What do you do when you face a setback?
Tell me about a regret you have and the lesson you learned from it.
What motivates you?
Please tell me about a time that you failed.
How would your friends describe you?
What are three words your colleagues would use to describe you?
What accomplishment are you most proud of?

Conclusion
Any questions for me?

While there are occasional unexpected hypothetical and/or critical thinking questions, especially from alum and adcom, this is very rare.

Interviewers (students, adcom, or alum) are friendly, passionate about Duke, and consistently try to create a very relaxed interview atmosphere. This is an interview about fit (just like Duke’s essays), so make sure you can explain in depth why you want to become a part of Team Fuqua and how you will contribute to it. Previous contact with alum, visits to campus, and/or intensive school research are all great ways to prepare.

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

Best of luck with your admission the Fuqua Class of 2016!

-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.

Wharton MBA 1-to-1 Interview Questions

This post supplements my main post on preparing for Wharton MBA Admissions Interviews.  It provides a list of the common non-Team-Based Discussion questions that are part of the one-to-one interview.

Like he has done with many other schools, my colleague, Steve Green has compiled the following list of questions from from all the reports submitted to accepted.com 
and clearadmit.com.  In addition to our client reports, we use lists of questions like these as part of our prep sessions with clients.

Questions about the Team-Based Discussion
1) How do you think the TBD went?
2) Was your behaviour typical of how you work in a team? / Was your behavior in the Team-Based Discussion representative of the way you typically act in group settings?

Resume/Introductions
1. Introduce yourself. / Tell me about yourself. / Walk me through your resume.
2. Discuss your career progress.
3. Are there any changes to your resume since you applied?
4. What do you do in your free time?
5. Tell me about your international experience.
6. Do you want to highlight anything in your application?

Teamwork and Leadership
7. Tell me about a time when you had to overcome an obstacle while working in a group and what you would do differently if you had to do it again.
8. Tell me about a time when you worked in a group in which everyone did not agree and how did your team resolve the situation?
9. Tell me about a how you have had to persuade others.
10. What are the top 3 qualities you think a leader should have?
11. Tell me about a time you failed, and what you learned from it.

Goals
12. What the 3 things you look for in a business school, especially in Wharton?
13. What do you see yourself doing at Wharton?
14. Why do you want an MBA? Why now?
15. Why Wharton? What will you do if you are not accepted?

Conclusion
16. Do you have any questions for me?

Best of luck with your Wharton interview.  For more on Wharton interview prep, see my main post on this subject.

-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.

The stupidest thing any applicant invited for an MBA admissions interview can do is...

The stupidest thing any applicant invited for an MBA admissions interview can do is not prepare sufficiently for the interview!

Every year, I work intensively with clients who prepare great MBA applications to top MBA programs, but regardless of what I suggest, regardless of the extensive resources of this blog or other blogs, regardless of what the interview reports indicate, regardless of what other people might tell them, they still don’t prepare sufficiently. Sometimes it all works, but too often it does not.

If you are avoiding preparation for your HBS, Stanford, London Business School, INSEAD, Duke, Columbia, etc. interview, you are taking unnecessary risk.  What is your excuse?

Some of my favorite excuses:

I’m too busy: Right, you were not too busy to study for GMAT or GRE (or possibly TOEFL or IELTS) or for campus visits or alumni networking or information sessions or making essays or filling out application, but now you are too busy.  Sleep less,  don’t watch TV,  forget Facebook, or whatever. Give yourself the time to develop winning content. Close the deal.  You spent so much time getting to the point where your chance of admission would increase dramatically, can’t you make time for the next 1-4 weeks before your interview to prepare for it.

I don’t want to over prepare:  Fine, don’t, just prepare. See here.


I feel stupid reciting answers to no one in particular, I hate hearing my own voice on a recorder, watching myself on video, or otherwise reflecting on my performance during practice:  Join the club. Now get over it.  Hearing your own voice and becoming comfortable with what it speaks pays off when you have to perform in front of others.  Listening to your performance helps you figure out how to say things effectively.  Watching your performance helps you understand how you appear to someone else. Self-awareness leads to performance correction.


The whole thing makes me so nervous, I rather not think about it. Actually practicing makes me nervous: I feel for you, but I would hate to be you when you have the real thing, which will be worse.  If you experience serious feelings of anxiety, lack confidence in interviews or public speaking situations, I highly recommend reading this.  Be open to changing your psychology. You are too young to remain in fear for the rest of your life.

Whatever your rationale for not practicing, get over it. You have come this far.  Finish at your best!

-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.