Round 1 / Student / On-campus (Published February 12th, 2010 by mbajourney2012)

I was waitlisted in R1 at Haas (UC Berkeley). All waitlisted applicants have an option to "enhance" their application, whether by seeking additional recommendation letters, re-taking the GMATs, submitting additional statements, etc. Another option is to have an interview, which is an opportunity I jumped on since I wanted to visit Haas anyway.

I scheduled an interview on campus for Monday morning. I arrived with about 45 minutes to spare, and spent the time going through my notes over a coffee in a Haas cafe, Fifo. I made my way to the admissions office ten minutes before the interview, and settled in waiting to be called.

Since the interview was scheduled on campus, I was expecting to be interviewed by an Admissions rep. I was a bit surprised when a student sitting in the chair next to me got up on the hour and headed my way to introduce herself. Lauren was really friendly, and she almost immediately mentioned that she is an alumna of my current company, so I felt at ease right away. We found a room, settled in, and began the conversation.

The questions were exactly the kind that you would expect from an MBA interview:

Why MBA?
Why Haas?
Tell me about a time you had to act on someone's feedback
What are you most proud of? (at this point, I mentioned that I moved to the States when I was 14, and I was very proud of how much I have achieved so far)
As a follow up to the story, what was it that allowed you to succeed at that?
Tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult situation on a team
Tell me about a time you took a risk
Overall, the interview felt very conversational and not at all stressful. I am sure it did help that after my MIT Sloan interview a month earlier, I replayed the interview in my head over and over again, analyzing everything I said, so I was well prepared for the questions. And of course, having an MIT Sloan acceptance in the pocket was a huge confidence booster.

As far as advice goes, I cannot stress enough doing your research. Using specific examples (i.e., the Experimental learning project in Zambia sounds really interesting because...) will make the conversation standout, as opposed to a generic "Haas has interesting classes." And last, but not least - be yourself!

Round 1 / Alum / Off-campus / Admitted (Published January 27th, 2010)

Haas invited me to interview off-campus in the Bay Area about three weeks before the decision deadline. While I was initially confused and concerned that my interview would be off-campus as opposed to Super Saturday, I learned from reading some online chats with Haas Admissions that Super Saturday is primarily for non-Bay Area residents and that an alumni interview was certainly no slight.

I met the alumnus at his office, and he escorted me to a conference room. The alumnus was very friendly and prepared to interview me that morning (e.g., my resume printed out with some notes on it). The interview is blind except for the resume.

The interview lasted an hour and was quite relaxed and enjoyable, albeit still professional. The main questions were:

Why MBA?
Short-term and long-term career plan (both goals and how I plan to go step-by-step toward those goals)
What specifically I hope to gain from Haas (including what classes I was interested in taking)
What specifically I can contribute to Haas
Tell me about your job and what you do at the office
Tell me about a time when you had a difficult interaction with someone at work
Tell me about a time when you made an impact at work
Questions for him
I was surprised by just how specific I was asked to be about the program, so it is essential that you have done thorough homework about Haas and know exactly how Haas fits into your career goals. That being said, the interviewer absolutely wanted me to succeed and did not try to grill or trick me. He wanted to make sure that I understood what Haas was all about and that I would be a good fit for the program.

The best way to prepare is to compile a list of all of the questions that have been listed in this wiki for Haas (and probably from other schools with alumni interviews, such as Stanford) and then go through all of the questions to compile answers or stories that you would give. Other than that know details about Haas that are compelling to you and be yourself.

Round 1 / Alumni / Off-campus (Published January 19th, 2010)

I was invited to interview with Haas in January 2010, around 3 weeks before the R1 deadline. After being contacted by the school I chose my location (Austin, TX) and was paired with an alumni in the area.

The Haas alumni from the very beginning was very friendly and engaged (more so than other MBA interviews I have had so far) and asked me what questions I might have about the program so he could research them beforehand. He then followed up with some information about several companies started by Haas alumni that I might be interested in.

We agreed to meet at a breakfast joint in Austin. The alumni was on time and very friendly/informal. While he took notes and did ask me some structured questions, the interview was fairly relaxed and no more intense than a typical job interview. There were no 'trick' questions and I tried to incorporate most of the factors I knew he would ask me about into my review of my resume and past experience.

His direct questions included:

Why MBA/Haas?
Tell me about challenges you've faced in previous positions and how you resolved them?
When have you had to deal with a difficult inter-personal relationship at the office and how did you deal with it?
What are your goals post-MBA?
I had already visited Haas and thus could speak about the campus and class visit, which seemed beneficial. I think the interview would have been less effective if I had not demonstrated that interest.

Overall the interview lasted 45 minutes but we sat and talked for nearly 1.5 hours total. The alumni also followed up with me after, passing on some additional contacts and information.

Round 1 / Alumni / Off-campus / First Shared by The Parisian MBA(Published April 9th, 2009)

My Haas interview took place at the end of 2008 in a hotel restaurant with a spanish Haas alumnus and lasted for 1h in english the all time.

Here is how it went:

When I received the notification I got preselected for an interview, I contacted the selected alumnus and we agreed to make the interview in a place convenient for both of us.

He offered me to do the interview in a restaurant of the Paris business district. As it was only 100m from where I worked, I obviously agreed on that.

When I arrived, my interviewer introduced himself. He was a business developer responsible for the EMEA area for a software company I did not know. He was very friendly and very open to discussion and therefore I relaxed a bit. He then asked me to introduce myself and describe my career to date.

Afterwards he asked me the traditional MBA applicants questions:

Why MBA?
Why now?
What are your goals post-MBA?
Why Haas?
He then asked me about challenges I encountered at work. He had prepared the interview well because he asked me some very specific questions.

He also asked about my latest achievement at work and to explain the way I managed people. As I explained that I wanted to focus on Entrepreneurship at Haas, he asked me why I could not start a company without a MBA. He also questionned what were my views on how to set up a business, what kind of people I would need to help me in my projects.

Then he asked about what other schools I applied to and thought it was a coherent set of applications regarding my goals.

Then he asked me whether I had any questions. Therefore I could ask a lot about Entrepreneurship at Haas, Visa issues for Internationals and life at Berkeley.

Afterwards he asked questions about one of the hobbies I mentioned in my file. It was very interesting because one of his friends was doing it professionally and we talked about the challenges we usually meet in this hobby.

The interview finally ended and we said goodbye.

I particularly liked this interview because the interviewer was very experienced and had a lot of hindsight on career and life in general. It was really a pleasure to share ideas with him and get positive feedback from him.

I guess it went well as I finally got in for September 2009!

Round 1 / Off-campus / Alum (Published March 27th, 2009)

Probably one of my best interviews till date, and everyone I spoke to confirmed that it sounded really good. The interview questions were ones that could have thrown me off-balance, but my interviewer was awesome - Smiling all the time, so I was so relaxed I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

I interviewed off-campus with an alum. I arrived about 1/2 hour early, and since my interviewer also walked in around the same time, we decided to start earlier. My interviewer was alum from the 2006 batch. I tried to find out some background info about him before the interview, but wasn’t able to.

So, atypically, the first question was about whether I would still go to business school if I won a lottery for a million dollars. In my opinion, its a perfect launch pad to establish why you want an MBA, and why it is more important than just to make money. The, it moved to aspects of if I actually had won that imaginary lottery, what would I choose to invest the money in. Since my focus in business school was technology (and since Haas is my fit!), I said that I would choose to invest in emerging technologies.

It moved on to - what in your opinion are 3 of the hottest emerging technologies today. I gave some smooth answers and I knew I had set a pretty good tone for the rest of my interview.

Rest of the questions included:

Could you spend 5 minutes taking me through your resume
Specific question around an emerging and innovative technology that I had worked upon
I’m from a rotational leadership program , so I was asked to describe my best and worst rotations
The one thing I missed out on during the Program
My role on my current project and organization
Why an MBA from Berkeley
If I could take a 1-month sabbatical from work, how would I choose to spend it (Choose to talk about my extracurricular here)
Which books are you reading now, and what would you recommend for me
After that, I had a chance to discuss at length, about my interviewers experience at Berkeley, specific advice for me, the best faculty, learning and innovation opportunities outside the classroom, how did he make his career choices and how did Berkeley help him in that aspect.

Round 2 / On-campus / Second-year Student (Published March 25th, 2009)

These were my interview questions. I interviewed with a student on campus for Round2 (and waitlisted):

Walk me through your resume.
What are your career goals?
Why Haas?
Tell me about this experience [X] which you listed in your resume. What did you learn?
What do you do in your spare time?
What book are you currently reading? Why did you choose it?
What is one thing in your application that you did not mention that you would like the admissions committee to know?
What do people like about you?

Round 1 Waitlist without Interview, Round 2 / Off-campus / Alumni (Originally Shared at RaghuForMBA. Published March 19th, 2009)

I got a waitlist-without-an-interview decision in R1 from Haas and I was asked to schedule an interview. At that time, there was no interviewer available in India. Not wanting to take a telephonic interview, I took the next possible option. I scheduled my interview in Singapore for 21st February 2009. My interviewer worked at McKinsey, Singapore and he was from Indonesia. He was Hass MBA Class of 2005 and had extensive experience working in the US and in SouthEastAsia.

I walked into the Centennial Tower in the Tamasek Avenue at 10:00 and sat in the coffee house sipping cold coffee (Singapore is sultry, just like my hometown Trivandrum), reviewed my notes and entered the McKinsey office at 10:50. My interview was scheduled at 11:00. I sat in the lobby reading the day's paper when my interviewer walked in. After exchanging pleasantries, we spoke at length about my journey to Singapore and I apologized for the confusion that had spewed on my interview schedule, flip-flopping my decision between doing it in India Vs Singapore.

Contrary to the usual, he started by telling me his experience at Haas. What he did and what he enjoyed… Then came the interview. It was really more a discussion than an interview. It lasted a bit more than an hour and was very conversational. He asked me a lot of questions including:

Walk me thru your resume
A leadership experience (I chose outside of work) - He dove in detail in this asking me about the strategies that I had adopted to deal with the problem and how I mitigated the risks associated with it.
Explain a time where you were a humble leader (An interesting question)
Why Haas?
My goals and how I thought Haas would help me get there
What do I know about Strategy Consulting?
How can I contribute to class and what I thought was unique in my candidature.
After this we had a big discussion on his days at Haas including his work with BSG (Berkeley Solutions Group). We discussed a case that he was involved with and the recommendations. Quite fun… It reaffirmed my belief of Haas as a place of “Confidence without Attitude” or as he put it, with “Humble Leaders”…

Round 1 / On-campus / Adcom / Super Saturday (Published February 9th, 2009)

There were approximately 100 applicants at Super Saturday this year. Interviews were scheduled over four hours and the timing of interviews was random.

I interviewed with Peter Johnson, Director of MBA Admissions. Although I was a bit nervous at first, Mr. Johnson was a very approachable and amiable person and a pleasure to speak with during the interview.

The interview was much more conversational than my previous admission interviews. Throughout our conversation we touched on the following topics:

Walk me through your resume.
What are your post MBA goals?
Why an MBA, why Haas?
Tell me about a leadership experience.
Tell me about something that you wished you could do differently (short answer #1).
The interview was supposed to last 45 minutes and ended up lasting an hour.

Like I said it was very conversational with some of these responses leading to 10 and 15 minute discussions about various current events, etc. As it has been reported in the past, Haas places significant value on the applicants' personalities and how they would fit within the community.

The one piece of advice I would offer is to do your research on the program and its many opportunities. This will help you both in your interview and in your ultimate decision-making process.

Berkeley MFE offer~面试总结，明年的校友召集～2011 spring entry

昨天拿到berkeley MFE 的offer了～今天来到这里share一下自己的experience，希望能帮助到今后申请的孩子们。

先介绍一下我的背景吧，我是今年6月份毕业，现在在Imperial College London读chemical engineering,我是4年本硕连读的course,所以今年毕业拿的是硕士毕业证书，expected first class honor.16岁来的英国，到今年6月份就6年了。

GMAT:710, AWA:5. 托福雅思不需要。没有任何working experience.....
其实我的背景一点也不好～之前也悲剧的被N家拒了～但是Berkeley的申请是我投入最多的～
现在讲讲Berkeley申请的几个流程吧～

最开始痛苦的就是他们的Video，我准备了10个小时就为了那5分钟，我是拿webcam录的，录之前上网看了些以前的前辈们的video,主要都是申密歇根的～挺有帮助的～这个一定要写speech,写好了以后一顿狂背。然后口齿清晰就好了。
然后就是等待，第一轮面试是学生面的，一上来就是数学题，然后问了对经济危机的看法，一些programming的东西，最后还问了brain teezer~这些问题完全没法准备的，就是考你的基础知识，我之前准备的方向完全错了～上来就是个二傻，不过没关系，把你的逻辑思维表现出来就好了。这个我面了40分钟。

等了两周，然后Diane让我给她们补充了我的course description,让我拿官方的资料总结，这个我弄的很仔细，每年的都弄了～大概几十页吧。

又过了一周，Diane大人说Linda大人要跟我聊天，我想应该是second round interview,所以拿上次准备的那些东西来应付，一上来Linda同学不太友好，跟我讲我学的数学不够，当时我就怒了，姑奶奶我4年理工，除了数学就没学别的了～一顿神侃，没侃过她～然后又问了我问什么录取我，又一顿神侃。庆幸的是我当时刚考完试，脑子还算灵光，于是答的还可以。然后LINDA大人高抬贵口，电话里就说录取我了，这其中我忽悠了很多，拿着本quantitative finance的书讲了一顿数理，估计LINDA姐姐被我侃晕了～

但是offer里要求我上他们提供的3个pre-requisite course并且准备CFA level 1,这是我自己挖的坑，因为自己之前一直说要考，所以我也就无怨无悔了。

这些希望能帮助到之后申请的孩子们，我知道申请的道路很艰辛，但是一定要坚持住，我今年是final Year,有在国外大学读书的孩子们都知道final year很辛苦的，但是我也一直挺住申请，所以千万不要气馁。搞笑的是我之前悲剧的精光，只要回信的都是据，结果昨天加上berkeley收到3个～哈哈～所以，时来是会运转的～大家要加油～

在这里也想召集明年的校友们～我们能在去之前大家认识下吗？～我没有相关的工作经验，相信明年不会过的轻松，但是有一起奋斗的人就好很多了～。

P.s 我在这里说的话请不要转到global derivative上～那里的外国人们一点都不帮忙，我也不想帮他们。

In@Haas [+面经]

The past week was so intense for me that I even dreamed of getting a call last night. And I got the call 10 mins after waking up.

So happy

background

710/106/4Y WE (1.5 deloitte + 2.5 design company)

interview
I had the interview with an alum in shanghai. very senior and nice person. actually it's kind of unusual interview. she didn't ask me any behavior question or why school/haas stuff. we spent the whole hour going through my one-page resume. she probed in details about my work experience, starting from my college. for instance, i took a minor degree in fudan. so she asked me the motivation and the experience. following that was the walk-through of my w/e with microsoft as an intern, with deloitte and changing my career into the design industry. the whole experience is not typical so it may not be that representative. really enjoyed the conversation. hope that would help a bit for r3 applicants.

look forward to having more ppl in haas

In @ Haas 与大家分享

我，36岁高龄，外企9年，Startup 1年。

只想鼓励大龄们，年龄不是问题。只要你还有梦想，永不言迟。

----------------------------------------------------

感谢素不相识的朋友们的祝贺。那就跟大家分享一下我的一些经历和感想，希望对以后的申请者有所帮助。

我的背景：

国内本科、硕士，通信专业，top 20的学校吧。毕业后即加入一家世界50强公司，9年间做过技术、市场、战略等不同的岗位，算是为general management积累了一些经验。去年与朋友创立了一家公司。做这家公司的目的对我来说很明确，希望在读MBA之前有创业和运营一家hi-tech startup的经验，更好地为毕业后的CG目标做好储备。

读US top MBA的梦想在心里萦绕了5~6年了，但我这个人总是习惯将事情拖到不能再拖的时候，所以动手准备是从去年9月，我完成了一个项目之后开始的。好在这几年英语一直是我的工作语言，所以考试没有费什么周折，自夸一下：GMAT复习两个月730，雅思复习两周7.5，iBT复习两天100（不过申请Berkeley没用上）。

我的感受：

1. 只要你还怀有梦想，就勇敢地去追。有人说过，当你回首一生的时候，常常不是因为做过什么而遗憾，而是因为没有做过什么而遗憾。所以，我想说，如果你真的有这个梦，那就至少要勇敢地实践一次。不要被年龄、工作、家庭等等问题所困扰。哪怕失败了也不会给自己心里埋上一个永远的遗憾。

2.essay的重要性怎么强调都不过分。在application package所有的环节中，其它的条件只要在范围之内就不会有问题，不要因为分数多少就坐立不安，因为对你的考察除了基本条件外，最主要的还是来自于essay。所以，如果有时间，就不时地review你的essay. （我说的是不时，连续作战往往会发生审美疲劳，review完之后放两天再看，会收到事半功倍的效果）

3.虽说never too late，但是各项工作还是越早准备越好。首先，年纪大了，留给你的时间窗就很小了，毕竟不像年轻人，还有充裕的时间以后再战。另外，essay的写作也是越早越好，仓促写就的essay和反复雕琢的essay，不要说AdCom，随便谁都是一眼可以看出来的。我可以告诉大家，我这次Round 2申请的学校，全军覆没。因为我大部分的essay都是一两天写就，还有36小时写了两个学校的。现在看来，这些文章都只能算是草稿。本来Berkeley也是准备Round2的，但是当子溪知道我在提交的当天晚上还差两篇essay,而我还在兴奋地熬夜时，及时地让我悬崖勒马，才使我有了Berkeley Round 3的成功。这里真的要感谢子溪！正是因为berkeley晚了一轮，才使我有时间好好琢磨我的essay,才使我的essay变得面目全非。但是，不是每个人、每次都能绝处逢生的，所以一切的工作还是宜早不宜迟。

4.有人问到EMBA。如果我这次没有成功，那我下面的计划就是国内EMBA了。我想，对我的CG发展来说，国内的EMBA和US的MBA应该也没有质的区别，之所以一定要努力一试就是为了实践我曾经年轻的梦。而国外的EMBA暨没有必要，也不现实了。另外，年龄绝对不是一个判断是否要读EMBA的标准，不要给自己事先套上一个框子。

最后，还是那句话，如果你有梦想，就勇敢的去追。其实，两年的时间非常短暂。我想，当你两年之后回来的时候，你周围的绝大部分人一定还和两年前一样，没有什么变化。因为这就是过去几年的我，波澜不惊。所以，勇敢地去逐梦吧，你的人生一定会更精彩！

Haas interview

I got interview with a lady in Haas today. Not sure how I did.

Questions were very general:

1. tell your career development - go through my resume;

2. why mba?

3. what would your boss say about you?

4. what would your reports say about you?

5. what do you do at spare time?

6. any questions for me?

Haas 面经

2008.4.1;Toronto; Alumni

校友首先自我介绍，2005年毕业，现在一家咨询公司工作

Q1.  Why MBA?

Q2. Why Haas?

Q3. What is your culutre shock experience?

Q4. What challenge will you face when you study in Haas?

Q5. Where will you be after 10 years?

Q5. Tell me a difficulty you have met as a leader.

Any questio for me?
共45分钟左右。

虽然被waitlist了，不过我interview过，呵呵

alumuni说是就问三个问题：you leadership potential, your working experience 还有一个忘记了

因为我的interviewer一直不停的问我的工作，其他什么都没问，呵呵

希望能帮到你们一些喽

Haas Alumni Interview
   

How you spent your holidays?
Why MBA?
Why you have such a noble career aspiration?
Why Haas?
Other schools you also applied? Your preference?
How you lead smart engineers and consultants?
What kind of manager you are in subordinates’ eyes?
How you handle those projects that you have little motivation?
What courses you want to take in Haas?
What are the areas you are good at and the areas you need enhance in MBA study?
What kind of job you plan to seek for summer internship?
What is you backup plan for your long term goals?
Where is you hometown?
What are you hobbies?
Something happened to my company recently ( reasons)
What is your role in X club? (community services)
How you become one of the committee members in X?
My questions to him
It lasted about 30 minutes. The interviewer was quite friendly and asked questions from a reference book from school. Finally, he asked me to allow him check my ID card.

Round 3 / Alumnus / Off-campus (Published April 16th, 2010)

My interview was conducted by a 2007 graduate at his office in the evening. Very conversational and comfortable. He didn't really take any notes but was focused on the discussion. Lasted about an hour and a half.

Walk me through your resume. (this was the majority of the discussion)
Why do you want to go to business school?
What do you see yourself doing coming out of business school?
What other programs are you interested in at Haas? (beyond the ones I had mentioned that fit with my career plan)
Tell me about a time you were able to do something creative/not by the book. (military background)
Tell me about a time you... something about wanting to go in a different direction than a supervisor.
What kind of leader are you?
Do you have any questions for me?
RESULT: Admitted April 21st 2010

Round 2 / Alumni / Off-campus (Published February 28th, 2010)

I applied round 2 in December 2009. Early in February I received an invite to Super Saturday in March. I had already visited Berkeley and could not take the time to visit again (from New York City) so I asked for off-campus interview instead. I was paired with a 2009 grad living and working in Brooklyn for a start up (something I'm interested in doing - we were paired because of our similar interests and goals).

We emailed to schedule it, and she asked me to suggest a coffee shop that was convenient to both of us. We met an evening after work - I went 15 minutes early to prepare and get a seat but she was already there so we started right after I got some tea. She was very friendly and nice though somewhat formal in her questioning. She definitely had a script and went by it - there wasn't much chit chat between my answers.

Questions were:

Walk me through your resume & your career to date
Tell me about your current role
Tell me about your experiencing managing people - are you managing direct reports now? What about cross functional teams like operations, finance, etc.?
Tell me about a time you experienced conflict with someone on your team & how did you resolve it?
What are your long and short term goals? Follow up - what kind of business do you want to start?
Why business school?
What will success look like for you? How do you define success?
Tell me about a time when you had an idea and you were swimming against the tide - what did you do to get your idea/plan across?
Why Haas?
If you were admitted, what's unique about you that you could contribute to Haas? What about outside the classroom?
Tell me something that's not on your resume
Any questions for me?
Took about 1/2 hour. Pretty standard stuff. A few seemed very vague and threw me a bit (like defining success... in business? life?) but she seemed to want me to interpret them however I wanted. Once we got to my questions for her, she relaxed considerably and opened up about her experiences at Haas. We spent the next half hour chatting and she was very helpful in giving me tips about classes, programs, etc. Definitely felt like the chemistry increased at that point and both of us could just be ourselves and get to know each other. Overall seemed to go well - fingers crossed!