Hella

Overall, the interview experience was wonderful, save the poor driving directions I printed for myself and my inability to hone in on the correct building among the four in the office complex. I am very pumped with how things went from a person-to-person perspective and I think I responded well to the questions the interviewer posed for me. Read on…

I had a bit of trouble finding the place, but thankfully I had a friend on the line that could read MapQuest while I unknowingly circled my destination in excess of four times. I left in plenty of time expecting this to happen. Truth be told, I got lost less then 5 minutes into my drive and immediately rang him up.

The confusion didn’t end here. I self-parked and walked up an escalator only to find myself amongst some seriously swank retail shops full of Christmas spirit. I contemplated going inside several of them to ask for directions in this multi-building complex but it seems as though the workers magically turned their heads each time I thought about going in the door. My nerves were so wracked at this point that I almost tried to open a door that had a black velvet rope across it just inside.

Finally I gave in and decided to give my interviewer a call on the phone to see if he wouldn’t mind steering me in the right direction. In about 10 seconds, he explained exactly where I needed to go.

Once I reached the office, I announced myself to the receptionist and my interviewer came around the corner just moments later. I breathed a sigh of relief that I had managed to make it to the interview and into the correct office even though I had under 90 minutes notice that the interview would actually take place.

I had a heck of a time scheduling this thing from the beginning. Very soon after I was notified that I had received an interview invitation, I began contacting alums in my area. It seems that one of them was too busy to fit me in during the next 30 days and the other did not have a working email address. I decided to sit tight and let things work themselves out. After all, I’d searched for possible “matches” and found a few people in Dallas, some in Houston, and one “match” who was “conveniently” located in San Francisco (quite a long ways from central Texas).

Things really heated up on Nov 26 when I received an invitation to interview with MIT Sloan. When I called to schedule my time slot, I had little choice, but I was happy to have the opportunity at all. Since I would be travelling to Dallas to complete this interview, I now hoped to also fit in the Wharton interview.

I spoke with the admissions office at Wharton and a very nice lady helped compile a list of possible alums to contact in Dallas. I headed up to Dallas without really knowing whether someone could meet with me or not.

But back to the day of the interview …
At around 9AM, I received a phone call that one of the interviewers could see me at 10:30AM. This gave me a short time to iron my shirt, get dressed, review and email my resume, and wander out to find the office.

With all the obstacles in the way, I am very surprised how calm I managed to be during the meeting which lasted just shy of an hour. The questions were presented in a very relaxed manner and I ended up speaking to my interviewer about personal preferences when it comes to home computers. I took this as a good indication that, given that we were already over our 30 minutes, the interviewer didn’t feel I was a complete waste of time.

Here are a few paraphrased questions I remember from the interview (I was trying to focus very hard so I’m not sure how much I remember).

1. Are you here on business (I was upfront and said I was in town to also interview with MIT Sloan)
2. What was your GMAT score? (I assume my GPA prompted this)
3. You seem to have worked at a lot of places in a short amount of time. Could you help me understand this?
4. How did you keep your grades while working full-time during your senior year?
5. It sounds like you do a lot of independent work at your current job. Are you worried about retained knowledge when you leave?
6. What do you think the committee will see as your weakness? (The interviewer mentioned that it was a question recommended to be asked in prior years, but not this year. I explained that it was now in an essay question.)

I don’t remember how we got on the topics below, but I do remember providing these answers. I drew upon my essays to help me reiterate Why an MBA, Why Now, Why Wharton.

1. During my MBA, I want to focus on developing areas less emphasized in my past experiences (finance, marketing, accounting instead of information systems).
2. I feel Wharton has the best all-around MBA education and the most top-rated specialties. I also like the high level of student involvement.

The interviewer was much more interested in having a conversation than grilling me for details. For this, I am forever grateful. As a closing thought, he also gave me some career advice and mentioned that I might be successful in VC since I have a technical background.

I’ll be sitting tight the next 3 weeks in anticipation of the Dec 23 release. In the meantime, I’ve got to catch my second interview of the day … and it’s at 2:30PM.

Filed under: B-School