CMU MBA Tepper Round 1 / On-campus / Adcom (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. |
