CMU Tepper MBA 面试汇总（2009-2010）

myice

CMU Tepper MBA R3 面经(4/1)

今天早上电面，申请的是R3 MBA。
问题很直接，

tell me about yourself
your resume
short term/long term goal
what you'd do in 20 years from now
weakness
what can you contribute to Tepper
Why MBA, why Tepper

基本就这些，说了27分钟，还问了她一些financial aid 的问题

myice

CMU Tepper MBA On-campus面经

好一段时间没上了，看到版上有同学要我CMU面经。我就发一下，抱歉拖了这么久。可能对今年的同学没什么帮助了，希望对明年申请的同学有用。

我去面试的时候正好赶上大雪停校，当天10点钟的面试，居然7点钟才发信说是面试cancel了，好不容易联系到一位admission officer,说是如果我不想reschedule的话，就上午有空，她是唯一一个在office的。从hotel到学校的shuttle停开，taxi叫了40分钟还没来。最后走了一段路，还好有辆bus过来，不过拖拖拉拉，到学校也10点多了。

给我面试的人是Gwen,人很好，很热情，一直笑眯眯的。问题没有全记住，不过都很基本，没有什么特殊问题，大概是：
1. Tell me about your work experiences.
2. What is your long term goal?
3. Why Tepper?
4. What can you contribute to the Tepper community if admitted?
5. Do you find yourself a team player? Examples of team work.
6. Tell me your strengths.
7. Tell me about one weakness in your application.

因为Gwen 态度很好，也一直在笑，所以感觉interview做的还不错。不过后来有几个也像我一样，来office做interview的，Gwen也是一直笑。所以最后弄得心里满没底的。

回来后写的感谢信也拿weather开了一些玩笑，然后也收到回信了。反正没什么秘诀，我觉得我拿到offer很大原因就是我把为什么选择Tepper说的很清楚, 而且目标明确。所以感觉很fit吧。

希望对未来申请CMU的同学有帮助。

myice

昨晚11:30和TEPPER的LINWOOD面试的。

一个很NICE的GG。上来说面试大概半小时，但是后面聊的比较开心吧，面了1个多小时。

他说他很喜欢面试，可以和不同行业的人接触，听他们的故事，很有意思。

废话少说，大概问题如下：

TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR INDUSTRY BACKGROUND

GOAL/WHY MBA/WHY TEPPER

BIGGEST ACHIVEMENT

LEADERSHIP EXAMPLE

LEADER YOU ADMIRE

PROFESSIONAL SETBACK

QUESTIONS?


整个面试都很轻松和友好，根本没有任何刁难（经历ROSS面试后，再看其他面试都觉得面试官好NICE）。

祝大家好运！

myice

Tepper的面经现在才发，自抽！

11月初，onsite， VS Krystal

前一天晚上到的Pitts，感觉像欧洲多过米国。

上午见了一直帮助很多的Na师兄，牛人一只～～

听课＋info session＋lunch with current student，但是基本很难集中精神。

下午第一个面试。adcom里面有个小姑娘在向Krystal学习，旁听了整个过程。

walk me through resume

long/short term goal

why MBA (以上这两个好像只问了一个...记不清楚了=_=)

why Tepper

why now

leadership style

hobby

question for us


这位面的好处就是，她会循循善诱，让你放松，给你思考的时间。

不好的地方就是，对面试太熟练了，超职业的笑容和语气下面有一颗难测的心=_=。反正俺是没impress到她。而且刚刚好卡在30分钟的interview也让俺心里!#$%^

Tepper全是adcom面。感觉他们的目标是30分钟，但是聊的来的话也会1个钟。Steelers是他们的骄傲，如果一点都不知道的话不太好。

师兄很nice，adcom也挺nice的。

sigh，当时面完感觉挺好的，后来越想越不对。俺的dream school啊啊啊啊啊啊啊～～～

唠叨完毕。火鸡节快乐～～

myice

今天做的tepper on-campus interview.
不是blind interview。

1.tell me about what you have done since highschool. Why you're sitting here today?
2.why tepper
3.what's kind of leadership do you have
4.what's kind of a team member you are
5.what's your hobby (问这个之前先问了一个what's your hubby doing........confused me a little bit)
6.who's the leader that inspired you alot. 我说了昂山素姬，但是很寒地说不出“缅甸”的英文，结果当场上wikipedia查给他看！

因为他都看过我的申请材料了，所以也没多罗嗦。剩下都是闲聊（黑人大哥喜欢闲聊），历时1个小时。

今天是tepper的women in business day，所以全部的prospective student都是女的。很壮观。tepper是个很nice的学校，一天的campus visit安排地很紧凑，感觉不虚此行。中午提供了很好的午饭，下午有下午茶。每个人还送了tepper的纪念汗衫和名片夹（应该是名片夹吧...）。另外去了好几个学校，这是第一次能有机会和dean交谈的。另外也有很多机会和tepper很有名的一位marketing教授讲话。所以tepper一直标榜的community文化不仅仅是说说的。

campus tour参观到一半想睡觉了，赶紧退出去喝了一杯浓茶，之后的interview才没有太迟钝。所以给接下来去做campus interview的cder的建议是，不要像我一样看到中午吃得好（或者仅仅是饿了）就吃太多，特别是巧克力蛋糕！吃完就打瞌睡！陷阱！

myice

抱着试一试的心理申了第三轮，刚刚结束面试：

问题如下：

Introduce yourself
Why MBA
Why Tepper?
What's your short term goal(因为我在第二个问题提到了long term goal,所以她问我一读完就去实现吗？)
A leadership experience and your leadership style
A teamwork experience(准备了与第五个问题一样的例子作为素材，所以很郁闷，说了些比较空泛的东西)
Your hobbies?
What you can contribute to the Tepper?
面试官是:Krystal Ray,挺nice,说话很快的一个美女（从CMU网上看到的照片，呵呵）

默默的等他们宣判吧，呵呵

myice

今天上午面试完毕，在北京转了两圈，然后坐了9个小时火车，刚刚回到家里。面试官是莫妮可·更多地女士，一个很和气的美国大姐。面试问题很traditional。

Introduce yourself
short term and long term goals
What is your weakness?
Why MBA
Why CMU
What's your leadership style?
What do you do for fun?
Teamwork
我个人的一些经验：

1、一定要做好准备，但是临场发挥也挺重要，有时候你不小心就被她引导的偏离了你的既定答案

2、注意细节。我看大家都在讨论面试应该穿什么衣服啊，带什么包包阿，可是很重要的一点坐姿大家都没有给与足够重视。因为我去得比较早，就仔细观察了我前面的一位男士。他用得最多的姿势是右手肘部放在右膝盖，左手掌部放在左膝盖，弓腰驼背，给人的感觉很不好。（如果您看到这个帖子请不要生气，我只是实话实说）具体男士和女士应该怎么坐自己上网搜索，我就不废话了。还有其他一些细节像牙缝里塞着韭菜叶子拉，拉链没有拉啦，等等。在洗手间都把它搞好

3、CMU好像对Wharton不太感冒。总是说我们CMU的program很小，大大地好。他们Wharton人太多，大大地不好。所以如果你要申请CMU和其他一些小program时，不妨拿Wharton作为反面教材（申Wharton的不要揍我。你们也可以拿CMU当反面教材，嘿嘿）

4、我看到论坛里经常有人问回答应该用essay里有的内容还是没有的。我的对策是准备一些essay里没有的，然后在回答她问题的时候问一句“Talking about this question, I don't know whether you've gone through my essay”，如果他说yes，那么就主要说没有的。如果说No，那还是说essay里面的吧，毕竟大家肯定都是把个人认为做好的一面写在essay里面。

差不多就这么多了，想起来再补充。

myice

Round 1 / Phone / Adcom (published February 11th, 2010)

it was a very informal discussion of my application. the interviewer put me at complete ease with some general conversation about the weather and other small talk. and then we began discussing my application.

it was mostly a reiteration of my application essays. the questions ( and i think in this order):

walk me thru your resume/career --- which then naturally lead to why MBA --- which then led to my post mba short term goals --- which then led to why Tepper --- and i think there was some mention of what I will bring to Tepper;

and then there were questions specific to my resume; such as examples of leadership experience, what is my learning from those experiences, what are the essential qualities to being a good a leader; all this lasted for abt 30-35 mins.

and then I asked a few questions about the Tepper program, which were very patiently explained. (about 10 minutes)...overall a great discussion !!

result--got an admit.

myice

Round 1 / On-campus / Adcom (Published January 27th, 2010)

I had applied in the round 1 for Tepper school of business and was preselected for the interview on Campus based on the my resume and GMAT scores even before I had submitted the application. I do not think this is the same case with remote interviews.

I had my interview with adcom member, Laurene Capone and It was not at all a stress interview. However, it was properly structured. The interview started with her describing how the interview will go and she specifically told me the time by which it should be should be wound up.

I am not sure if the interviewer had seen my application or it was completely blind. I had no communication on that. But this information can be key to the preparation. So, make sure one of AWARE of this information. She had a document on which she went on scribbling while I was answering the questions.

My impressions were that if we are prepared enough, the interview should be a cake walk. All of the questions( except a couple ) that were asked were the ones I have seen before and for which I had ready made answers.

So, PRACTICE with TIME LIMIT is the key. The typical questions that were asked were the following. ( in sequential Order ).

Tell me about yourself .. I was not told about time I should speak for this question, so I went on speaking. I was stopped in the middle. My advice to the fellow applicants is to be prepared for a short 3-4 minutes talk about yourself, giving a snapshot of your entire life. Do not try to say everything but only a few highlights.
Why do you want an MBA and why Tepper ?
Why MBA now ( I found this hard to answer )
Then came the Stumper. Laurene said that she is going to ask a difficult question and asked me to take time to answer this. What do you think is the weakest part of your application.I guess this is not similar to a generic weakness question but weakness from the application perspective.
She asked me about the leadership experiences I had till date and what did I learn from.
Also was asked about the cross cultural experiences and what I learnt from them.
After this question, Laurene said she is finished with the interview and opened the forum for me I told her that I wanted say something that I had missed earlier and I took this chance to tell amount about my community activities. I asked her few questions around student life and clubs.

And, that was it. I was done. After the interview I felt a lot comfortable and got a feeling that I could have done a lot better. I was tensed during the first part of the interview ( it is my first face to face interviews ) and later I cooled down and was talking freely. My advice to fellow applicants is to practice the interview ( Face to face, or infront of the mirror ) as many times as possible. But do not overdo it to the extent that it seems that you reading something from a book. BE RELAXED while answering. Also, try to be as clear as possible. At one time, I was speaking very fast and was told by laurene to slow down J All the best.

RESULT : Waitlisted in Round 1.

myice

Round 1 / Phone interview / Adcom (Published November 16, 2009 as shared in Magologue - A Young gal's dreamroll)

Interview lasted for 45 minutes. First 30 minutes, I answered the questions of interviewer and next 15 minutes interviewer answered my questions about Tepper and MBA program

Questions:

Tell me about yourself. Include your academic and professional background.
Why does an MBA make sense to you at this point of time
Why Tepper is the right school for you ? Tell me about the steps you have taken to research about Tepper
Tepper values leadership. Tell me about your leadership style. Mention an example where you displayed leadership
Teamwork is a highly valued attribute in any MBA aspirant. Tell me your role in the team. Give me an example where you were a part of a difficult team situation and the steps you took to resolve the issue.
Describe how you see your career unfold in next 2 years, 5 years and 10 years to the best of your knowledge.